and logistics industry automotive founded 1946 founder david wickins headquarters farnham england key people avril palmer baunack executive chairman tim lampert chief financial officer products physical and online vehicle auctions owner bca marketplace plc number of employees 5 000 website bca uk bca marketplace plc british car auctions bca has grown to become europe s leading used vehicle marketplace operating in 13 countries selling 1 million vehicles per annum . contents 1 history 2 uk and global operations 3 bca logistics limited uk 4 references history edit in 1946 royal navy officer david wickins decided to sell his riley lynx tourer . placing an advert in the local newspaper he offered to sell the car to the first person who turned up at his mothers house in farnham surrey with 200 . arriving home late he found a crowd of eager buyers and so auctioned the car off for 420 . 1 wickins then rented a farmer s field at frimley bridges now under junction 4 of the m3 motorway and set up his first public auction . the 14 cars auctioned sold for a total of 8 250 . wickins and one of his brothers immediately founded southern counties car auctions ltd which after exiting the royal navy shortly afterwards he expanded across the uk by selling surplus ex british army and royal air force vehicles for the ministry of defence . 1 renamed british car auctions wickins then expanded the company across europe and the united states through acquisition . this included the purchase of the car auctions division of british conglomerate hawley goodall owned by michael ashcroft . this proved to be the start of a lifelong friendship between wickins and ashcroft and through his bermuda and belize based holdings in various banks ashcroft would finance a number of wickins later business ventures . 2 in 1987 ashcroft bought out the existing shareholders of bca via hawley goodall and closed down wickins treasured aviation division which flew both jet ranger helicopters and king airs turbo props.h the company had head offices at the frimley bridges site but later moved to purpose built premises at blackbushe airport yateley to accommodate the now closed aviation division which it still occupies . employing 160 at its head office wickins built the company into the largest car auction business in the world before retiring in 1990 . 1 a near scratch golfer through this and his long association with the conservative party wickins met and befriended denis thatcher . wickins later agreed to sponsor mark thatcher s motor racing activities in the 1980s through bca . denis later served on one of wickins companies boards while mark served as chairman of lotus cars and later bca in north america which wickins had led from near bankruptcy to survival . 1 by 1995 belize based hawley goodall had undertaken a reverse takeover of adt security services and renamed itself adt . as a result of its focus on security systems it sold the north american and european arms of bca in separate deals . while the residual north american arm was broken up and sold to trade buyers the european arm was sold to a consortia of some 40 private investors including lord ashcroft via his belize based investment company . in september 2006 the company was bought by the investment banking arm of private bank samuel montagu & co. a division of hsbc . 3 in february 2010 bca was acquired by the private equity investment firm clayton dublier & rice . 4 uk and global operations edit bca belle vue in manchester bca is europe s largest used vehicle auction company selling well over 1 million vehicles every year . it has 46 branches in 13 countries united kingdom portugal spain france belgium the netherlands italy poland switzerland denmark sweden germany and brazil and serves buyers from all countries through its auction centres or online . it sells on behalf of a wide range of vendors including fleet owners and small companies leasing and finance companies new and used car dealers car importers and manufacturers banks private individuals the company does not generally own the stock it sells but instead acts as a neutral intermediary between buyers and sellers with the notable exception of stock purchased through we buy any car which the company purchased in 2013 . auction centres can be found on the group website or on one of the country websites . it uses both physical auction centres and online selling to sell vehicles from 47 centres in 13 countries across the world . in june 2015 bca bought sma vehicle remarketing the group formerly known as scottish motor auctions in a private acquisition worth 43m . in 2015 bca market place plc also purchased stobart automotive from the eddie stobart group . bca logistics limited uk edit bca logistics is the uk s number one provider of vehicle remarketing logistics services for the automotive sector . services offered single vehicle driven movements single multi vehicle transporter movements vehicle inspection services secure vehicle storage and refurbishment solutions bespoke integrated i.t. solutions lcv trade plate movements references edit a b c d auctions magnate began by selling just one old car . gethampshire.co.uk . 13 february 2007 . retrieved 14 july 2012 . andy mcsmith and ben laurance 16 january 2000 . ashcroft s lotus position . the observer . retrieved 14 july 2012 . ashcroft in for bca cash windfall . sky news . 20 september 2006 . retrieved 14 july 2012 . bca sold to us private equity company . am online . 4 january 2010 . retrieved 29 january 2013 . v t e the hertz corporation subsidiaries british car auctions we buy any car dollar thrifty automotive group donlen corporation hertz car sales people henry caruso john d. hertz david wickins related the omnibus corporation retrieved from https en.wikipedia.org w index.php title british car auctions & oldid 742394009 categories auto dealerships of the united kingdomservice companies of the united kingdombritish companies established in 1946hsbc acquisitionsprivately held companies of the united kingdom1946 establishments in englandhidden categories engvarb from january 2014use dmy dates from january 2014 navigation menu personal tools not logged intalkcontributionscreate accountlog in namespaces article talk variants views read edit view history more search navigation main pagecontentsfeatured contentcurrent eventsrandom articledonate to wikipediawikipedia store interaction helpabout wikipediacommunity portalrecent changescontact page tools what links hererelated changesupload filespecial pagespermanent linkpage informationwikidata itemcite this page print export create a bookdownload as pdfprintable version languages deutsch edit links this page was last modified on 3 october 2016 at 12 40 . text is available under the creative commons attribution sharealike license ; additional terms may apply . by using this site you agree to the terms of use and privacy policy . wikipedia is a registered trademark of the wikimedia 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