Lake Success-based Dealertrack closes merger with Cox Automotive

Noah Manskar

Atlanta-based Cox Enterprises has closed a deal to buy Lake Success’ Dealertrack Technologies for $4 billion, the companies announced Thursday.

Cox and Dealertrack, which makes software for car dealers and manufacturers, had been working out the deal since June.

Dealertrack CEO Mark O’Neill said in a statement that the two companies have “strong common values.”

“Working together, we will fully unlock the potential of our combined brands and teams to serve our clients,” he said in a joint statement from Cox and Dealertrack.

Dealertrack will be folded into Cox Automotive, a Cox subsidiary that also owns Kelley Blue Book and Autotrader.

The closure of the deal came after another announcement from Dealertrack Thursday that it had sold Inventory+, one of its programs that helps car dealers keep track of their inventory, to California company DealerSocket for $55 million. 

The merger with Cox was contingent upon Dealertrack selling the program, following an antitrust complaint that the U.S. Department of Justice filed Tuesday.

Dealertrack and Cox Automotive, which owns two other inventory tracking systems, are both “leaders” in the inventory-tracking market, the complaint said. If Inventory+ had not been sold, the merger would have increased Cox’s share of the industry from 60 percent to 86 percent.

Dealertrack originally agreed to divest of Inventory+ in August to comply with the government’s antitrust concerns.

Its 200 employees responsible for the program, most of whom are based in Dallas, Texas, will be transferred to DealerSocket.

Dealertrack was founded in Garden City 2001 as a local credit application network for car dealerships and has since expanded to serve car dealers and lenders across the U.S.

In 2005 it moved its headquarters to Lake Success, where about 400 of its 3,900 nationwide employees work.

The company is building a new headquarters on New Hyde Park Road in the Village of North Hills. It secured $18.6 million in combined tax breaks for the $112 million project last year, from both the state’s Empire State Development and Nassau County’s Industrial Development Agency.

Dealertrack estimates the new building will allow it to add 350 more employees.

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