White Family Company auto dealerships by the numbers
Employees: 850 (about 175 in Dayton)
Annual sales: $700 million (2014 projected)
Vehicles sold: 22,500 (2014 projected)
Dealerships: 17, representing 22 different auto nameplates/brands
States: 3 (Ohio, South Dakota and Wyoming), with Colorado in the works
Construction/renovation investments in Montgomery County: more than $10 million, including a new $4.5 million White-Allen Honda dealership in downtown Dayton scheduled to open Dec. 1.
Source: Tim White, president, White Family Company
The parent company of local White-Allen dealerships is celebrating its 100th anniversary this year with ambitious plans inside and outside the Dayton area.
The White Family Company — now under the direction of the third and fourth generations of the White family — is in the midst of a $10 million investment to its Dayton-area operations, including the upcoming opening of its new White-Allen Honda dealership a block from its existing dealership in downtown Dayton. And the company is poised to expand its geographical footprint elsewhere: it has signed a letter of intent to purchase two Colorado dealerships to add to its holdings in Ohio, Wyoming and South Dakota, company president Tim White said.
The company has come a long way from humble beginnings. In 1914, Hugh White overcame significant personal adversity — he was orphaned at a young age — to launch his first dealership in Zanesville in what was then a fledgling automobile industry.
The auto entrepreneur chose Dayton for his next car agency a few years later, and with the help of Hugh’s son Jim, the company began to grow and flourish, eventually adding Chevrolet, Honda and Toyota dealerships in Toledo and Dayton.
Today, the White Family Company operates 17 separate dealerships representing 21 nameplates/brands, led by Tim White and his two brothers, Jim and Dave. It has 850 employees, about 175 of whom work in the Dayton area. Total annual sales are projected to reach 22,500 vehicles and $725 million this year, Tim White said last week in a phone interview from Wyoming.
Those numbers are expected to rise as the company actively seeks to buy additional dealerships. “We’re still looking to expand,” White said.
The fourth generation of Whites in the auto business is helping direct the company’s growth. Tim White Jr. lives in South Dakota but will soon return to the Dayton area to oversee dealerships in this region, Tim Sr. said, while nephew Dave White Jr. oversees multiple dealerships in the Toledo area.
White noted the cryptic conventional wisdom that is said of family-owned businesses: that the first generation creates it, the second generation expands it, and the third generation bankrupts it.
“That’s what I was always afraid of,” he said. “But now I think we’ve passed that point.”
Tim Doran, president of the Ohio Automobile Dealers Association, said for a group of family-owned dealerships to survive for a century through challenges that included the bankruptcies of two of the “Big Three” U.S. automakers and the astonishingly high interest rates of the early 1980s is a powerful testament to the White family’s business acumen.
“One-hundred years is quite a pinnacle,” Doran said.
And the 100th year has been a pivotal one for the company’s Dayton-area dealerships, where the White Family Company is making significant investments, including:
• $4.5 million for the new White-Allen Honda dealership on North Main Street in downtown Dayton, scheduled to open Dec. 1: $4.5 million;
• $1.5 million in renovations and improvements to White-Allen Chevrolet, also in downtown Dayton: $1.5 million;
• $1.1 million in renovations and improvements to the White-Allen European Auto Group on Ohio 741 in Miami Twp.: $1.1 million;
• $3 million, and possibly more, in construction or renovation of a White-Allen Body Shop near the Chevy and Honda dealerships.
The Chevrolet and European Auto Group projects have been completed. But the body-shop project has encountered complications in part because the bids for constructing a new body shop came in higher than expected, White said. Company officials are weighing the possibility of renovating and expanding the existing body shop rather than building a new facility, but are also exploring other financing options, and no final decision has been made, the company president said.
White said the improvements will help establish a solid foundation for a smooth transition to the next generation of family ownership. A succession plan is in place, White said, and the six members of the family’s fourth generation support staying in the auto-dealership business.
“The feeling of family is what keeps thing going day-to-day,” he said. “Very seldom do you see fourth-generation businesses anymore.”
The family, White said, was recently approached about selling the company, but rejected the idea.
“This is what we know, so we’re going to stick to it.”
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