The buy-sell market is not booming and it is not breaking. It is becoming selective. Capital is abundant and buyers are active, but it is flowing decisively toward strong franchises with clean, defensible earnings — and away from weaker brands and softer stories. For owners of well-run rooftops, the conditions to sell are among the best of the decade. For owners of challenged franchises, the gap between expectation and what the market will actually pay has widened, and it is widening further.
That is the whole report in a sentence. The rest is detail.
The headline numbers
Transaction volume accelerated sharply into 2026. In the United States, an estimated 139 rooftops changed hands in Q1 2026 — up 39% year-over-year and 29% above the pre-pandemic Q1 2019 baseline, a pace on par with the record years of 2021–2023. Private buyers accounted for 96% of those acquisitions, and multi-dealership transactions rose 54% year-over-year. This is not the public consolidators driving the tape; it is independent operators deploying balance sheets built over the last five years.
Profitability has normalized — but normalized at a structurally higher level, not back to the old world. The average publicly owned U.S. dealership generated roughly $4.0 million of adjusted pre-tax income on a trailing-twelve-month basis, down just 3% from 2025 and still 109% above the pre-COVID average of about $394,000. Quarterly profit was down year-over-year on a tough comparison — Q1 2025 was inflated by tariff-driven pull-ahead demand, and this winter’s storms suppressed Eastern showroom traffic — but the fixed-operations and F&I engines kept earning: F&I gross per vehicle hit a new record at $2,627, and fixed-ops gross grew 3.6%. The dealership model has absorbed softer new-vehicle margins and kept its footing.
Blue-sky values pulled back modestly off a strong base. The average blue-sky value of a public dealership eased 4% to about $18.2 million in Q1 2026 from $19.0 million at year-end — a dip that reflects softer profits and a couple of franchise downgrades, not a loss of market confidence. Blue-sky values remain roughly double their pre-pandemic average.
Sellers have stopped asking for COVID-era multiples; buyers have accepted that pre-COVID pricing is gone. That shared reality is exactly why volume is up.
The valuation picture by franchise
The single most important development in 2026 is dispersion — the spread between what the strongest and weakest franchises command has stretched to its widest in years.
At the top, scarcity rules. Lexus remains the most coveted franchise in the market, carrying blue-sky multiples in the 9.0–10.0× range of normalized earnings; the quarter’s marquee transaction — Penske’s acquisition of two Orlando-area Lexus stores at a reported $538 million of blue-sky and intangible value — underscored the premium that elite luxury commands when it rarely trades. Mercedes-Benz (8.0–9.0×) posted the largest dealer-sentiment gain of any brand and has broadened its approved-buyer pool, pulling more capital and more competitive bidding into the franchise; it has reclaimed a position at or just above BMW in buyer preference.
In the middle, the strong domestics held or improved. Buick-GMC was upgraded to 3.75–4.75×, drawing level with Chevrolet, on better product, stronger front-end gross (GMC Denali and AT4 trims are generating gross that can run double a comparable Chevrolet at similar turn), and genuinely improved factory-dealer relations. CDJR sits around 3.0–4.0×.
At the bottom, the market is unforgiving. Volkswagen was downgraded out of a multiple framework entirely to a $0–$5 million dollar-value range, reflecting weak U.S.-specific product, the steepest fall of any brand in NADA’s Winter 2026 Dealer Attitude Survey, and the brand’s decision to route Scout sales around its dealer network. VW stores are now rarely targeted standalone, and in some platform deals their inclusion can reduce total value. Nissan, Infiniti and a handful of others face similar, if less severe, pressure.
The practical implication for an owner: your brand badge now explains more of your value than it did three years ago. Two dealerships with identical revenue and identical real estate can be worth multiples apart depending on the franchise over the door. For the mechanics of how earnings get normalized before any multiple is applied, see our piece on the EBITDA add-backs most dealer CPAs miss.
Canada
The defining Canadian story of the first half of 2026 is AutoCanada turning for home. The country’s largest publicly traded dealer group has nearly completed its exit from the United States — divesting its Leader Automotive platform store by store (Kia and Hyundai of Lincolnwood to Berman Automotive; Toyota of Lincolnwood to Serra) — while redirecting capital toward its Canadian core and toward collision as a consolidation platform, acquiring Modern Autobody in Edmonton in January 2026 and framing collision as a resilient-margin, highly fragmented opportunity.
Read the signal, not just the headline. A sophisticated, capital-disciplined operator concluded that its returns were better concentrated at home and in adjacent, fragmented service businesses than spread across the border. For Canadian sellers, that means a large, motivated domestic acquirer is now focused on the Canadian market — alongside the regional groups and family offices that have always competed for well-run rooftops in Ontario, Quebec, Alberta, B.C. and Atlantic Canada.
Canadian blue-sky multiples broadly track the U.S. for like brands, typically running modestly below comparable U.S. levels — a function of market size, OEM concentration and financing conditions rather than any structural discount on quality. The same dispersion applies: a strong import or luxury franchise in a healthy Canadian metro is a genuinely scarce asset and is priced like one.
The United States
The U.S. market in 2026 is private, selective, and geographically concentrated. Private buyers are doing 96% of the deals; the public groups, having spent heavily in 2025 (a combined $4.4 billion across nearly 80 franchises, skewed to import-luxury marquee assets), are being choosier. Geography matters: the Southeast accounted for 35% of all rooftops sold and the Midwest 28% in Q1 — buyers are chasing the Sunbelt’s population and economic growth.
The forces pushing sellers to act are durable: an aging dealer population, rising facility-image investment requirements from OEMs, mounting pressure on weaker franchises, and mid-to-large groups pruning underperformers to concentrate capital in higher-margin stores. None of those forces is cyclical. They will still be there in 2027.
Cross-border
It would be easy to read AutoCanada’s retreat as the border closing. It is closer to the opposite. Capital is still crossing the 49th parallel — it is simply being more deliberate about direction. U.S. private buyers continue to look north at well-run Canadian rooftops, particularly where a strong franchise and favourable currency math line up; Canadian groups continue to evaluate U.S. entry where a specific asset justifies it. What has changed is discipline: cross-border buyers are underwriting individual assets, not platforms-for-the-sake-of-scale.
For owners on either side, the cross-border buyer pool is a real source of competitive tension in a sale — but only if the process is run to reach it discreetly. We cover the tax, regulatory and OEM-consent mechanics in our cross-border pillar.
What it means if you’re thinking about selling
Three things follow from all of this.
First, the window is real but franchise-specific. Dealers who sold in 2021–2023 caught the peak. The data says a comparable window is open now — but it is open widest for strong franchises in strong markets, and it will not stay open indefinitely. If you own a coveted brand, the question is timing, not whether there is a buyer.
Second, the work is in the earnings, not the multiple. You cannot control your franchise’s multiple band; you can control whether your normalized earnings are clean, defensible and presented properly. A half-turn of multiple is nice; a properly normalized earnings base — every legitimate add-back captured, every owner expense identified, every one-time item explained before a buyer’s quality-of-earnings team finds it — is where real dollars are won or lost. The strongest outcomes typically start 12–18 months before a sale, not the month the owner decides.
Third, discretion is leverage. A confidential, well-run process that quietly reaches the full buyer pool — private operators, groups, cross-border capital — creates competitive tension without ever signalling to your staff, your OEM or your market that you are exploring a sale. A public listing does the opposite.
Coussa Group’s read
From where we sit, across live North American mandates, the market matches the data: buyers are present and serious, and they are discriminating. Strong franchises with clean books are drawing real competition. Owners of softer franchises are best served by honesty about today’s pricing and a focused plan to improve what can still be improved before going to market.
Where does your dealership sit in this picture?
The most efficient first step is an indicative range. Our confidential valuation estimator returns a blue-sky range in about two minutes from a handful of inputs. From there, a principal advisor reviews your actual figures personally and returns a defensible number — under NDA, with no public listing and no obligation.
Request a Confidential Valuation →
Methodology & sources. This issue draws on the most recently published industry data as of late June 2026: the Haig Report® (Q1 2026), the Kerrigan Blue Sky Report™ (Q1 2026), the DSMA North American Automotive Intelligence Report (Q4 2025), NADA data series, and public company disclosures (AutoCanada, Penske Automotive Group). Blue-sky multiples are benchmark ranges for franchise rights and goodwill, applied to normalized pre-tax earnings; they exclude real estate and tangible assets, which are valued separately. All figures are indicative market benchmarks, not a valuation of any specific dealership. This article does not constitute financial, tax or legal advice.
The North America Dealership M&A Pulse — Mid-2026
The buy-sell market is not booming and it is not breaking. It is becoming selective. Capital is abundant and buyers are active, but it is flowing decisively toward strong franchises with clean, defensible earnings — and away from weaker brands and softer stories. For owners of well-run rooftops, the conditions to sell are among the best of the decade. For owners of challenged franchises, the gap between expectation and what the market will actually pay has widened, and it is widening further.
That is the whole report in a sentence. The rest is detail.
The headline numbers
Transaction volume accelerated sharply into 2026. In the United States, an estimated 139 rooftops changed hands in Q1 2026 — up 39% year-over-year and 29% above the pre-pandemic Q1 2019 baseline, a pace on par with the record years of 2021–2023. Private buyers accounted for 96% of those acquisitions, and multi-dealership transactions rose 54% year-over-year. This is not the public consolidators driving the tape; it is independent operators deploying balance sheets built over the last five years.
Profitability has normalized — but normalized at a structurally higher level, not back to the old world. The average publicly owned U.S. dealership generated roughly $4.0 million of adjusted pre-tax income on a trailing-twelve-month basis, down just 3% from 2025 and still 109% above the pre-COVID average of about $394,000. Quarterly profit was down year-over-year on a tough comparison — Q1 2025 was inflated by tariff-driven pull-ahead demand, and this winter’s storms suppressed Eastern showroom traffic — but the fixed-operations and F&I engines kept earning: F&I gross per vehicle hit a new record at $2,627, and fixed-ops gross grew 3.6%. The dealership model has absorbed softer new-vehicle margins and kept its footing.
Blue-sky values pulled back modestly off a strong base. The average blue-sky value of a public dealership eased 4% to about $18.2 million in Q1 2026 from $19.0 million at year-end — a dip that reflects softer profits and a couple of franchise downgrades, not a loss of market confidence. Blue-sky values remain roughly double their pre-pandemic average.
Sellers have stopped asking for COVID-era multiples; buyers have accepted that pre-COVID pricing is gone. That shared reality is exactly why volume is up.
The valuation picture by franchise
The single most important development in 2026 is dispersion — the spread between what the strongest and weakest franchises command has stretched to its widest in years.
At the top, scarcity rules. Lexus remains the most coveted franchise in the market, carrying blue-sky multiples in the 9.0–10.0× range of normalized earnings; the quarter’s marquee transaction — Penske’s acquisition of two Orlando-area Lexus stores at a reported $538 million of blue-sky and intangible value — underscored the premium that elite luxury commands when it rarely trades. Mercedes-Benz (8.0–9.0×) posted the largest dealer-sentiment gain of any brand and has broadened its approved-buyer pool, pulling more capital and more competitive bidding into the franchise; it has reclaimed a position at or just above BMW in buyer preference.
In the middle, the strong domestics held or improved. Buick-GMC was upgraded to 3.75–4.75×, drawing level with Chevrolet, on better product, stronger front-end gross (GMC Denali and AT4 trims are generating gross that can run double a comparable Chevrolet at similar turn), and genuinely improved factory-dealer relations. CDJR sits around 3.0–4.0×.
At the bottom, the market is unforgiving. Volkswagen was downgraded out of a multiple framework entirely to a $0–$5 million dollar-value range, reflecting weak U.S.-specific product, the steepest fall of any brand in NADA’s Winter 2026 Dealer Attitude Survey, and the brand’s decision to route Scout sales around its dealer network. VW stores are now rarely targeted standalone, and in some platform deals their inclusion can reduce total value. Nissan, Infiniti and a handful of others face similar, if less severe, pressure.
The practical implication for an owner: your brand badge now explains more of your value than it did three years ago. Two dealerships with identical revenue and identical real estate can be worth multiples apart depending on the franchise over the door. For the mechanics of how earnings get normalized before any multiple is applied, see our piece on the EBITDA add-backs most dealer CPAs miss.
Canada
The defining Canadian story of the first half of 2026 is AutoCanada turning for home. The country’s largest publicly traded dealer group has nearly completed its exit from the United States — divesting its Leader Automotive platform store by store (Kia and Hyundai of Lincolnwood to Berman Automotive; Toyota of Lincolnwood to Serra) — while redirecting capital toward its Canadian core and toward collision as a consolidation platform, acquiring Modern Autobody in Edmonton in January 2026 and framing collision as a resilient-margin, highly fragmented opportunity.
Read the signal, not just the headline. A sophisticated, capital-disciplined operator concluded that its returns were better concentrated at home and in adjacent, fragmented service businesses than spread across the border. For Canadian sellers, that means a large, motivated domestic acquirer is now focused on the Canadian market — alongside the regional groups and family offices that have always competed for well-run rooftops in Ontario, Quebec, Alberta, B.C. and Atlantic Canada.
Canadian blue-sky multiples broadly track the U.S. for like brands, typically running modestly below comparable U.S. levels — a function of market size, OEM concentration and financing conditions rather than any structural discount on quality. The same dispersion applies: a strong import or luxury franchise in a healthy Canadian metro is a genuinely scarce asset and is priced like one.
The United States
The U.S. market in 2026 is private, selective, and geographically concentrated. Private buyers are doing 96% of the deals; the public groups, having spent heavily in 2025 (a combined $4.4 billion across nearly 80 franchises, skewed to import-luxury marquee assets), are being choosier. Geography matters: the Southeast accounted for 35% of all rooftops sold and the Midwest 28% in Q1 — buyers are chasing the Sunbelt’s population and economic growth.
The forces pushing sellers to act are durable: an aging dealer population, rising facility-image investment requirements from OEMs, mounting pressure on weaker franchises, and mid-to-large groups pruning underperformers to concentrate capital in higher-margin stores. None of those forces is cyclical. They will still be there in 2027.
Cross-border
It would be easy to read AutoCanada’s retreat as the border closing. It is closer to the opposite. Capital is still crossing the 49th parallel — it is simply being more deliberate about direction. U.S. private buyers continue to look north at well-run Canadian rooftops, particularly where a strong franchise and favourable currency math line up; Canadian groups continue to evaluate U.S. entry where a specific asset justifies it. What has changed is discipline: cross-border buyers are underwriting individual assets, not platforms-for-the-sake-of-scale.
For owners on either side, the cross-border buyer pool is a real source of competitive tension in a sale — but only if the process is run to reach it discreetly. We cover the tax, regulatory and OEM-consent mechanics in our cross-border pillar.
What it means if you’re thinking about selling
Three things follow from all of this.
First, the window is real but franchise-specific. Dealers who sold in 2021–2023 caught the peak. The data says a comparable window is open now — but it is open widest for strong franchises in strong markets, and it will not stay open indefinitely. If you own a coveted brand, the question is timing, not whether there is a buyer.
Second, the work is in the earnings, not the multiple. You cannot control your franchise’s multiple band; you can control whether your normalized earnings are clean, defensible and presented properly. A half-turn of multiple is nice; a properly normalized earnings base — every legitimate add-back captured, every owner expense identified, every one-time item explained before a buyer’s quality-of-earnings team finds it — is where real dollars are won or lost. The strongest outcomes typically start 12–18 months before a sale, not the month the owner decides.
Third, discretion is leverage. A confidential, well-run process that quietly reaches the full buyer pool — private operators, groups, cross-border capital — creates competitive tension without ever signalling to your staff, your OEM or your market that you are exploring a sale. A public listing does the opposite.
Coussa Group’s read
From where we sit, across live North American mandates, the market matches the data: buyers are present and serious, and they are discriminating. Strong franchises with clean books are drawing real competition. Owners of softer franchises are best served by honesty about today’s pricing and a focused plan to improve what can still be improved before going to market.
Where does your dealership sit in this picture?
The most efficient first step is an indicative range. Our confidential valuation estimator returns a blue-sky range in about two minutes from a handful of inputs. From there, a principal advisor reviews your actual figures personally and returns a defensible number — under NDA, with no public listing and no obligation.
Request a Confidential Valuation →
Methodology & sources. This issue draws on the most recently published industry data as of late June 2026: the Haig Report® (Q1 2026), the Kerrigan Blue Sky Report™ (Q1 2026), the DSMA North American Automotive Intelligence Report (Q4 2025), NADA data series, and public company disclosures (AutoCanada, Penske Automotive Group). Blue-sky multiples are benchmark ranges for franchise rights and goodwill, applied to normalized pre-tax earnings; they exclude real estate and tangible assets, which are valued separately. All figures are indicative market benchmarks, not a valuation of any specific dealership. This article does not constitute financial, tax or legal advice.