Nearly two years after being bought by franchisees, the large buy-here-pay-here (BHPH) group Byrider is eyeing an aggressive expansion.
Plans for expanding: Headquartered in Indiana, the BHPH company has been around since 1979, but was purchased by a group of franchisees from an equity company in 2024. In an interview with CDG, Byrider CEO Mike Onda explained the company could triple its footprint.
“We spent the first year and a half improving our support and our product that we’re selling. And now for the past six months, we’ve stepped on the gas to grow the system. We’re in 100 dealer markets right now. We believe there are over 300 markets that could support a healthy Byrider dealership. We’re looking to aggressively but responsibly grow the system.”
While Onda has no timetable for the expansion plans, he points out that it is part of a long-range plan. He did say the company has doubled its pipeline of qualified new franchise candidates.
Different path: Byrider’s growth plan stands out in the industry, which has seen some major players in the BHPH sector struggle.
Tricolor, for one, folded after filing bankruptcy in late 2024, with its CEO and founder, Daniel Chu, indicted for fraud.
America’s Car-Mart announced in April of this year that it was closing 42 of its 136 dealerships.
Why this matters: A Federal Reserve report from May on the BHPH space pointed out that banks’ loans to BHPH dealers were lower risk than loans to traditional auto dealers, due to a higher percentage of loans backed by a guarantor (81%) and backed by inventory or loan receivables (65%).
However, the Fed’s analysis showed that between late 2024 and 2025, loan risk metrics for BHPH dealers moved closer to those of other dealers.
Talking with Onda: He acknowledged there were challenges in the BHPH space coming out of the pandemic, when the wholesale prices of cars soared, reconditioning costs increased, and the subprime market contracted.
“This isn’t unusual coming out of a negative economic cycle. There’s always consolidation of the industry coming through the hardest time, but the people that are left are usually the strongest players and have a huge growing opportunity,” Onda said.
Growing sector: Onda also referenced the newest data from Experian showing new growth in the subprime market.
For those unfamiliar, the Experian Q1 data showed subprime auto loans hit their highest share since 2022 at more than 28%.
In the used market, subprime was 38%.
Onda stated Byrider stores are outperforming industry standards on chargeoffs at 1.06% compared to 1.9%. Its delinquencies were at 10.5% compared to 26.6%.
“It’s a combination of things. We’ve been in business through multiple economic cycles over 35 years and learn from them,” Onda said. “The practical application of that is when there was all this free stimulus money out there, but the vehicles were super expensive to buy, our franchisees didn’t get ahead of their skis. They continued to maintain strong underwriting procedures, and they didn’t assume that just because someone had extra down payment money, they should ignore all the rest of the fundamentals of the deal.”
“The other thing they did when assets got really expensive,” Onda continued, is “they stocked less and less cars on the lot and sold less deals at the end of the day. So they might not have felt as good as a lot of people in 2022 and 2023, but they knew the other shoe was gonna drop, and it did.”
Investing in the company: Since the Byrider Franchising Partners bought the company, it has invested in training and software.
Ben Goodman, who was a NIADA 20 Group Moderator and Consultant, was brought back to Byrider to head up the internal training.
Byrider developed its own software package to upgrade its system.
“We continue to focus on increasing same-store profitability for our franchisees and then growing the system,” Onda said.
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Industry awareness campaign: The company is also making a big push around public awareness within the industry. Byrider was one of the companies to receive an inquiry from Elizabeth Warren in February on repossession practices.
The Federal Reserve report noted that BHPH dealers originate 6% of all auto loans and that balances have grown by 214% since 2018.
BHPH dealers are also 16.63 times more likely to have a loan actively in repossession.
It was found in Q3 2025 that 5% of BHPH balances were in active repossession compared to other dealers.
At that time, 10% of BHPH loans were delinquent.
Today, the average interest rate is 25.39% for BHPH borrowers.
Onda offered that Byrider and other members of the BHPH sector provide value to their consumers, many of whom have limited options for securing transportation.
Bottom line: “We serve a critical and growing need, and we have for decades,” he said. “We provide real value to our customers, and we help our customers improve their lives.”
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