Mavis leads Top Independent Tire Retail rankings

AKRON — Buoyed by its mid-year acquisition of TBC Corp.'s retail business, Mavis Tire Express Services Corp. solidified its position as the largest independent tire retail dealership in North America by a wide margin over No. 2 Monro Inc.

That acquisition — 595 NTB and Tire Kingdom retail stores in 15 states — ranks as the largest transaction in the retail tire business in the U.S. in the past 25-plus years and took TBC out of the retail business altogether.

While Mavis' deal for the TBC retail assets topped the mergers-and-acquisitions table for the past year, it was by no means the only deal of significance in the retail sector.

The 2023 Top Retail Dealership rankings appear in the Oct. 23 edition Tire Business.

• Belle Tire Distributors Inc.'s acquisition of Tireman Auto Service Centers of Toledo, Ohio, expanding Belle's reach into northwest Ohio, where Tireman has 15 locations, in addition to three stores in southeast Michigan;
• Discount Tire/America's Tire's acquisition of Dunn Tire of Buffalo and its 25 retail outlets in western and central New York and Pennsylvania;
• Sun Auto Tire & Service Inc.'s purchase of Tire Outlet, a 14-store dealership in Northern Florida;
• MFA Oil Co.'s takeover of 13 Big O Tires stores in the Kansas City, Mo., metro area from TBC Corp., expanding MFA's Big O network to 35 outlets in three states;
• Pomp's Tire Service Inc.'s purchase of Royal Tire Inc. of Saint Cloud, Minn., and its 17 predominantly commercial service-oriented points of sale in Minnesota and South Dakota;
• Dytech Auto Group Inc. (d.b.a. GreatWater 360 Auto Care)'s acquisition of Tire Tracks USA, a Bradley, Ill.-based dealership with 14 stores and a warehouse in northern Illinois, together with a dozen or more smaller acquisitions;
• Left Lane Auto L.L.C.'s acquisitions of Modica Bros Tire of Beaumont, Texas and Clark Tire/Warehouse Tire of central Missouri, each covering nine retail stores;
• Southern Tire Mart's purchase of TF Tire & Service, with nine locations in south-central California.

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Discount Tire's recent purchase of Dunn Tire was unprecedented on several levels. Only one other time has the Scottsdale, Ariz.-based company acquired another dealership. It puts the dealership into the automotive service/repair business for the first time (Dunn Tire derived 30% of its revenue from auto service), and it adds another retail brand name to the company's portfolio (the Dunn Tire stores will continue to operate as Dunn Tire).

Just prior to announcing the Dunn Tire purchase, Discount Tire opened its first store in eastern Pennsylvania, in Wilkes-Barre, Pa., but under the America's Tire brand it has used up to now only in northern California.

When asked about the use of America's Tire in Pennsylvania, Discount Tire acknowledged it's tied to a trademark ownership dispute between Reinalt Thomas and Mavis Tire Supply L.L.C. dating back to 2019.

At that time Reinalt Thomas sued Mavis over its use of "Discount" in the name of its retail stores in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, North and South Carolina and Texas, states where Discount Tire already had established a measurable market presence.

At issue was Mavis' intention to use the Mavis Discount Tire name on stores it had acquired from Kauffman Tire. Instead it agreed after a court case to use Mavis Tires & Brakes at Discount Prices.

At the same time, Reinalt Thomas and Mavis agreed to a "concurrent registration" agreement that ensured that Mavis would be able to continue using Mavis Discount Tire on its stores in New York, New Jersey and parts of Connecticut, Massachusetts and Pennsylvania.

As a result, Reinalt Thomas opted to use the America's Tire brand in eastern Pennsylvania and, presumable, on any other new stores it might open in the areas covered by the concurrent registration agreement.

• Greatwater 360 Auto Care, the Hudsonville, Mich.-based dealership group that's exercising an acquisition-driven growth strategy, leading it to 120 stores through the Great Lakes/upper Midwest, debuting at No. 16;
• Texas Tires L.L.C., a Dallas-based dealership with 43 points of sale throughout Texas, Arkansas, Colorado and Oklahoma, No. 26;
• Left Lane Auto L.L.C., a Champaign, Ill.-based, private-equity-backed enterprise that's building a network of retail tire store/auto repair stores, No. 38 with 33 outlets currently;
• Northern Rock Automotive, an Atlanta-based business actively buying small dealerships, predominantly in the U.S. Southeast, with a number of Tire Pros dealers among those acquired, debuting at No. 42 with 30 outlets.
• Bill Williams Tire Center, the Abilene, Texas-based dealership with 14 outlets.
• Chapel Hill Tire Co., which added two points of sale in the past year to grow to 11 outlets in central North Carolina;
• Action Tire Co., a predominantly commercial-focused dealership based in Atlanta, with 10 outlets that also do retail work;
• Cooperative Producers Inc., a Hastings, Neb.-based farmers' supply cooperative that operates 10 Mr. Tire-branded outlets for its members;
• Kirk's Tire, an Edmonton, Alberta-based dealership with 10 retail stores affiliated with the Trail Tire marketing program; and
• Pneus GBM, a Val d'Or, Quebec-based Point S affiliate with 10 retail locations.

Monro Inc. retained the No. 2 spot on the ranking with 1,299 retail outlets, up eight from a year ago. Discount Tire ranked third after adding 65 points of sale in the past year — including the Dunn Tire stores — for a total of 1,175 outlets.

While most of the major dealerships spent the past adding locations, two prominent players — Icahn Automotive/Pep Boys and Wheel Pros L.L.C's 4 Wheel Parts unit — retrenched measurably over the past year.

Pep Boys closed a net of 31 stores since September 2022, dropping to 891 locations throughout the U.S. and Puerto Rico. The company has not commented publicly on its reasons for closing the stores or disclosed which stores closed.

At the same time, Pep Boys has opened a handful of greenfield locations, including stores in Brownsburg, Ind., Raleigh, N.C. and Chalmette, La., over this past summer.

Despite the smaller footprint, Pep Boys' parent Icahn Enterprises reported higher sales for the first half of fiscal 2022.

Icahn/Pep Boys is the No. 4 dealership in the ranking, ahead of Les Schwab Tire Centers with 519 locations, and Sun Auto Tire & Service, with 423 locations, up 63.

Kal Tire (257 stores), Percheron Capital/Big Brand Tires (205 stores), Tire Discounters Inc. (195 stores) and Belle Tire Distributors (175 stores) round out the Top 10.

For Greenwood Village, Colo.-based Wheel Pros, the situation was a bit more involved. Since taking over 4 Wheel Parts as part of its purchase in the third quarter of 2022 of Transamerican Auto Parts, the company took stock of 4 Wheel Parts' retail footprint — 100-plus outlets in the U.S. and Canada at that time — and determined that many of the stores were located too far away from the collective Wheel Pros/Transamerican wholesale distribution network.

In the end the company shut 60 locations, retrenching to 45 stores that Wheel Pros management feels the company can supply effectively through the 35 warehouse D/Cs and logistics centers it operates throughout the U.S.

With the retrenchment, most of the 4 Wheel Parts retail stores are located in four core markets, California, Colorado, Florida and Texas, which also corresponds with the business' key demographics.

On a more synergistic note: Wheel Pros noted that the 4WP retail outlets now benefit from the wide range of Wheel Pros suspension and lighting kits.