Automotive Financial Group - Nissan Auto Finance

Automotive Financial Group (normally styled as AFG) was a British company specialising in automotive retailing, and the sale of associated products and services. The company was founded by the Austro-Hungarian businessman Octav Botnar, as an extension of his successful Nissan import and distribution company Nissan UK.

History and Background

Botnar had successfully built up a successful business since 1970, importing and marketing Datsun/Nissan cars within Britain - eventually attaining a 6% overall market share by 1980, to the point where the United Kingdom was the only export market where Nissan outsold its arch-rival Toyota. Botnar had achieved this by appointing a network of small, family owned dealers (many of whom were former British Motor Corporation and British Leyland franchisees) to sell Datsun and placing an emphasis on customer serviceHowever, by the 1980s it had become clear that many of these businesses were too small to handle the vast amount of extra used stock and servicing/repair work which was now being generated. The solution was to buy out many of these smaller businesses to create a large conglomerate which would allow larger, more profitable sites to be developed.

The company at its peak operated over 200 car dealerships in the United Kingdom, specialising in primarily Nissan vehicles - approximately 160 of the 220 sites held Nissan franchises. However, by the late 1980s, Nissan had established the Sunderland assembly plant, and was considering taking the existing Japanese import and distribution business in-house, and negotiations with Botnar over a possible takeover of Nissan UK began in 1988.

After disputes between Nissan's executives in Japan, and Botnar over pricing of the then new Nissan Primera in 1990, coupled to controversies surrounding alleged tax fraud implying certain AFG and Nissan UK executives (including Botnar himself), Nissan set up its own import and distribution business within the United Kingdom, appointing a new network of dealers, and effective in 1991 Nissan terminated the supply of new vehicles to Nissan UK and AFG.

The company was sold in 1994 to the Barclay brothers for £200 million. As parts of the company were sold off, the remaining operations, under a new name, Caledonia Motor Group, refocused on sales of Fiat, Alfa Romeo, Peugeot and Renault in the northwest of England. In November 1999, an management buyout was effected, and in January 2008, the company was placed in receivership.

Botnar later died in Switzerland some years later as a tax exile, currently still wanted in the United Kingdom under suspicion of tax fraud offences.

Trivia

Owing to the one time ubiquity of AFG branded car dealerships in almost every major town and city in the United Kingdom, an running gag in the British motor trade, was that the letters AFG stood for "Another F***ing Garage".

References