Graingers grow new Mantles dealership group with second site

Car retail brothers Harry and Neal Grainger have completed the acquisition of a second site - EMG Royston, including a Vauxhall authorised repair station.

The site is a 1.6-acre plot which adjoins the Graingers’ Mantles Kia Royston site, extending its footprint there to 2.6 acres.

Earlier this year in January, they officially become business partners with the acquisition of Mantles, paving the way for the creation of their new dealer group.

The sons of Norton Way Group founder David Grainger, they formed the Hertfordshire-based Grainger Motor Group five months after leaving their positions as operations director and finance director at Norton which was acquired by Marubeni Auto Investment in 2008.

The Mantles Kia dealership facilities on York Way, Royston, was redeveloped in 2019 after fire tore through the facility. It offers an eight-car showroom and seven-bay workshop including one MOT bay and has an additional off-site storage facility for used car stock.

Neal Grainger said at the time that there was scope for improvement at the dealership which was Kia UK’s retailer of the year in 2016., and saw online aftersales booking and online car sales as a significant area of opportunity in addition to increasing both new and used car sales. Harry Grainger added that its launch ambitions were to build a dealer group with multiple sites.

“Since then,” he said, “we have invested in facilities, storage, internal photo studio, increased staffing from 35 to 55 and subsequently doubled the turnover from £12 million to £24m, increasing the direct profit by £500,000. We have taken the dealership from ranking 76th in 2022 in the Kia dealer balance scorecard to second in the country. With one month to go, we’re still gunning for first place and are pleased to have been awarded by Reputation as a Top 50 Dealer.”