CAP bid to end the mistrust of car dealers

The company believes that providing customers and dealers with valuable information can increase transparency and reduce mistrust in the process of buying a car.

Montague Private Equity acquired the Leeds business for £170m and has allowed CAP to unleash new investment to hit ambitious growth targets.

CAP is a well-known name in the motor trade and is a market leader in providing used car pricing and technical information to industry professionals, but under its previous ownership, CAP was restricted from entering the consumer market.

Ian Rendle, chief executive, said he plans to launch new products this summer.

He told the Yorkshire Post: “The reason why we think it is the right thing to do is because the relationship between a consumer and a dealer is not a good one.

“There is a great deal of mistrust, (which) has been built up over many years. Fundamentally, it is there because there is a lack of openness and transparency around the transactions.

“Even when a dealer is giving a consumer a great deal – he’s wiping out all of his margin – you still think you are getting a bad deal and that’s not right.

“We believe that CAP is uniquely placed to arm both the dealer and the consumer with open transparent information that allows people to see the fairness in a deal.”

CAP is developing software for mobile phones, tablets and desktop computers to provide instant information to consumers. The data will help potential buyers understand the real cost of owning a particular vehicle.

Mr Rendle said: “The cost of owning a vehicle is very complex. There is information around insurance, finance, road tax, fuel, service maintenance repair, let alone depreciation.

“You can’t get that information in one place; you have to go to seven or eight different sources. If you want to compare that car with another car, it’s virtually impossible.

“We believe CAP has the access to all that data.

“We can actually put that in front of the consumer in a really easy, simple-to-use intelligent way... that allows them to compare one car with another car and look at the actual running costs.”

This is likely to be measured in pence per mile.

CAP was founded by two Skipton car dealers in the mid 1970s who decided that Glass’s needed some competition. Media group Emap bought the business for £20m in 1994.

Its customers include the main dealer groups, contract hire and leasing companies, banks, insurers and manufacturers.

CAP is dominant in many of its markets and made an early move into digital publishing and collates massive amounts of data about vehicles.

It is used as the industry benchmark for the residual values of used cars.

Mr Rendle declined to discuss figures, but said he expects turnover to grow by nearly 20 per cent this year.