SVN Advisor Insights would like to present Brad Hopkins
Brad Hopkins
Advisor
Hi, I’m Brad Hopkins. I have a specialty practice buying and selling Harley Davidson dealerships and then branching out to other national brands such as Kubota and John Deere. I see people specializing in these different brands and becoming an expert in just doing John Deere dealerships, which there are thousands in the country. These are mostly family owned businesses. Mostly they change hands generationally. They will change hands as people get closer to retirement, the baby boomers, as we all know. Small businesses are reaching that retirement age.
We’ve grown our dealer network from 1 dealership to 7, bought and sold approx. 15 transactions during my time as president of Rommel Harley Davidson. We learned a lot about the value of these dealerships as we went through these multiple transactions as both a buyer and seller. We clearly understand what motivates the buyers and who most of the buyers are. There are about 40 dealerships that change hands on an annual basis. Having been an owner/operator for 15 years, I understand the sweat equity involved I understand the emotional part of selling one of these businesses. They are not just assets on a balance sheet. Letting go of them is not just a business transaction, it is an emotional transaction and we can understand that because we have lived their life, we’ve worked in these dealerships, we understand what is involved in making these business successful. It is seven days a week.
The one I have listed now is 64 years of a family business. You can see they will say, “I build that,” and “we changed that.” When I say “they” I mean they had a hammer in their hand. Its genuine. These are multimillion-dollar assets, but they are very small family owned business that have grown with the brand over decades. We will be like the small businesses we are trying to sell; we are going to start small and grow over time. I am excited about the opportunity this presents, and I think there is a vast potential for this to be successful.
Brad Hopkins | Advisor
410.543.2440
brad.hopkins@svn.com
