Dealership buy-sell activity keeps accelerating, even as average dealership profits have slipped, according to two reports from The Presidio Group.
For context, the first report tracks deal activity and dealer sentiment on buying and selling. The second tracks quarterly financial performance across the industry.
In the first report: Transactions through the first half of 2026 are estimated to be up 23% year over year, and that’s about 215 deals involving about 315 dealerships, according to Presidio's Q2 2026 Dealership M&A Market Update.
The share of dealers who said they want to sell in the next year rose to 18%, up from 11% at year-end 2025.
That's the highest percentage of interested sellers since they started the survey in 2023.
Other notable numbers:
64% of dealers want to buy a store in the next year.
More than 90% of industry transaction volume typically involves a private buyer.
And looking forward, 64% of dealers expect earnings to increase or stay the same over the next three years, and 75% expect dealership values to increase or stay stable, despite current profit woes.
"The M&A market remains robust, but buyers are much more selective about what they want to own," George Karolis, Presidio's president, said in the report.
He added that dealers now weigh the whole cost of ownership, including brand strength, market conditions, facility requirements, and long-term earnings potential, before buying or selling.
Continued review of whether dealers want to buy or sell, plus increased liquidity, is driving Presidio's prediction for the buy-sell bustle to continue, he said.
Beyond that: Portfolio management remains a big theme.
"There's a whole cadence of portfolio management, whether it be the wrong market, they're in the wrong market, or they don't have scale, or they're trying to diversify their brand mix," Karolis said in a CDG podcast interview. "There's a whole host of reasons why folks sell stores that are ultimately net growers."
On multiples: Presidio raised its blue sky multiples for the most in-demand brands.
Lexus rose a full point to 10.0x–11.0x, still the highest multiple in Presidio's index, driven by strong per-store new-vehicle throughput and a network that isn't over-saturated.
BMW rose to 8.0x–9.5x, as its mixed powertrain strategy helped the brand gain U.S. luxury market share. (And its competitors lost ground.)
Toyota rose to 8.0x–9.5x, driven by new-vehicle supply and demand dynamics. And, unsurprisingly, the brand also holds the strongest OEM-dealer relationship and top desirability ranking among dealers surveyed by Presidio.
Chevrolet and GMC both rose in the index, as high-performing stores in the southern U.S. drew premiums, helped by GM's more manageable facility requirements relative to other brands.
Audi went the other way, with its multiple cut by half a point to 5.0x–6.0x, reflecting dealer concern about an aging product lineup and softer sales and residual values.
Presidio also pulled blue-sky guidance entirely for Volvo, Infiniti, and Volkswagen, citing unprofitability or near-break-even performance across those brands.
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Those same brands show up again in the quarter's operating results.
According to Presidio-NCM's Q2 2026 benchmark report:
Luxury dealerships saw the steepest profit decline of any segment, down 13.3% year over year, yet Lexus and BMW both got valuation bumps this quarter.
Domestic dealership profit was essentially flat, down just 0.2%, the best-performing segment.
Chevrolet and GMC picked up multiple increases in the same quarter.
Despite the surging deal activity, earnings were still a tough look, though Presidio shared a bright spot there.
Kevin Tynan, Presidio's director of research, said during a Drive-In Live webinar featuring him and Jason Stein that dealership profits are stabilizing, even though they're still down from a year ago.
Net pretax profit fell 11.8% year over year in Q2, nearly matching Q1's 11.2% decline.
Tynan said that consistency is an early sign that earnings are leveling off.
Much of the year-over-year drop traces back to 2025 numbers that were driven by tariff-related pull-ahead buying and an easy comp to a 2024 quarter disrupted by the CDK outage.
Fixed-ops gross profit grew 5.2% in Q2, up from Q1's sluggish 1.4% growth. Tynan cautioned that most of that lift came in June and called "somewhere in the middle" the more sustainable pace going forward.
F&I income also hit a record $1,769 per retail unit, up 4.8% year over year, continuing to help offset weaker vehicle margins.
Quarter to quarter tells a steadier story, too, since new-vehicle gross profit improved 3.3% from Q1 to Q2, and used-vehicle gross profit rose for a second straight quarter.
Bottom line: Paul Faletti, CEO of NCM Associates, said in the report that dealers should focus on execution.
"The dealerships performing best are the ones that understand where their profits are coming from and are intentional about protecting those profit streams while watching costs,” Faletti said. “Whether it's improving vehicle acquisition efforts and service-lane retention or creating a better customer experience, dealers have many opportunities to strengthen their results.”
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