Marshall acquires Heritage Automotive’s Cheltenham and Gloucester JLR dealership

Marshall Motor Group will develop a new dual-franchise Jaguar Land Rover dealership for Cheltenham and Gloucester after acquiring the franchise from Heritage Automotive.

The AM100 PLC announced completion of the deal this morning (May 25) and wasted no time in revealing its plans for a new facility under the car manufacturer’s Dual Arch Concept corporate identity.

The business, currently located in leasehold premises at Rutherford Way, Cheltenham, will move to a new freehold location at Ashville Business Park in Staverton – the site of the previous Land Rover dealership – in August.

Development to a new ‘Arch’ facility will then get underway “in due course”, Marshall said.

Marshall’s latest growth comes just days after chief executive Daksh Gupta spoke to AM about the retail group’s repayment of £4m in Government COVID support.

The pledge was made in a May 20 AGM statement which revealed an 11.1% market outperformance on new retail car sales and 7.2% in used in the four month period to April 30 and forecast a 2021 year-end profit before tax of £21.1m – matching its 2019 performance.

Commenting on the group’s latest acquisition today, Gupta said: “We are delighted to complete this acquisition which is in line with our stated strategy to grow further scale with our existing brand partners in new geographic regions.

“We have a strong track record with the Jaguar and Land Rover brands and in 2020 the group was ranked as their number one and two dealer group, respectively.

“We also enjoy an excellent relationship with the whole team at JLR and I would like to thank them for their support during this transaction.

“Cheltenham and Gloucester are fabulous locations for the Jaguar and Land Rover brands and we are proud to extend our representation with them in these strategically important territories.

“This acquisition extends the number of counties in which we operate to 29 and this is our first business in this part of the M5 corridor and in Gloucestershire.

I would like to welcome all our new colleagues to Marshall and we look forward to working with them to grow and development the business further.”

Jaguar Land Rover UK managing director, Rawdon Glover, said: “Marshall Motor Holdings are a large and high performing partner for Jaguar and Land Rover, we welcome the opportunity to expand with them into Cheltenham and Gloucester territory.”

Marshall said that 51 new colleagues will join its business as part of the acquisition of the Heritage Automotive JLR franchises.

Marshall now operates seven Jaguar and nine Land Rover franchises in Bedford, Cambridge, Ipswich, Lincoln, Melton Mowbray, Newbury, Oxford, Peterborough and now Cheltenham and Gloucester.