Fort Myers car dealership properties sell for $33.7 million

The Galeana Automotive Group has sold three of its dealerships, two of them in Fort Myers, as part of deal that saw it exit the Florida and South Carolina markets.

The two local dealerships are Galeana Kia of Fort Myers and Galeana Chrysler-Dodge-Ram-Fiat of Fort Myers. The buyer is the Orlando-based Bill Nero Automotive Group.

Haig Partners, the brokerage firm which represented Warren. Michigan-based Galeana and announced the sales, did not disclose terms of the deal.

But Lee County records show the property for Galeana Kia at 14483 S. Tamiami Trail was bought by an LLC tied to Bill Nero for $33.74 million. The deed for Galeana Chrysler-Dodge-Ram-Fiat at 14375 S. Tamiami Trail (which is on the same lot as the Kia store) was transferred to a second LLC, also tied to Nero, for $10.

The sale price of the land does not reflect the “Blue Sky” value of the Galeana dealerships.  

The “Blue Sky” multiple, as Haig describes it on its website, reflects “what a buyer is typically willing to pay above the value of hard assets, based on the expected future earnings of a dealership.”

That multiplier includes franchise growth, stability, profitability; market demand; and projected returns.

The third dealership sold is Galeana Chrysler-Dodge-Jeep-Ram in Mount Pleasant, South Carolina. It was bought by the Mount Pleasant Automotive Management Group.

(Charleston County, South Carolina, property records were not immediately available.)

According to Haig, Galeana was founded 40 years ago when founder Frank Galeana bought Van Dyke Dodge in Detroit. From there, the business grew to include seven dealerships in Florida, Michigan and South Carolina.

Galeana was one of the country’s first Saturn dealers and built the group into one of the largest Hispanic-owned business in the country by the late 1980s.

According to Lee County property records, the dealer group bought the 14483 South Tamiami Trail property in 2015 for $5.4 million.

As for the Bill Nero Automotive Group, Bill Nero’s LinkedIn profile shows he is CEO at Chrysler of Fort Myers, Dodge of Fort Myers, Fiat of Fort Myers, Jeep of Fort Myers, Kia of Fort Myers, Ram of Fort Myers, Universal Genesis, Universal Hyundai and Universal Nissan.