Marubeni Expands Automotive Operations in UK

Tokyo (JCN) Jan 17, 2006 - Marubeni Auto Investment (UK) Limited (MAI) on January 16 acquired car dealer outlets in South Manchester. MAI's group company RRG Group Limited (RRG, located in Manchester) acquired the assets of 3 Toyota, 1 Lexus and 1 Mazda outlets from Smith Knight Fay Limited, a group company of European Motor Holdings PLC, for the acquisition amount of GBP15 million.

This acquisition increases the number of car dealer outlets MAI owns in Manchester from 14 to 19, 9 Toyota, 3 Lexus, 4 Peugeot, 1 Mazda and 2 bodyshop outlets and the annual sales volume from 13 thousand to 20 thousand units. Especially for Toyota and Lexus, MAI will operate sales and service network in the whole Manchester area and it will become the largest Toyota retail group in UK.

MAI started its automotive retail business by acquiring RRG in November 2000 and marked steady profitability since then. MAI's partnership with these strong franchises will expand its business and enable further growth in both sales volume and profitability. MAI will target a turnover of GBP300 million after this acquisition.

Marubeni operates car dealerships in US, Belgium and Chile, other than UK and we will strengthen car dealership operations as one of the pillars in our automotive business.

By Jun Ota, JCN Staff Writer