Big Brand Tire & Service plans to quadruple its store count within the next five years by investing in its people and technology, according to Joe Buscaglia, the company’s CEO.
“We’re a rocket ship,” Buscaglia told MTD during this week's Big Brand Tire & Service President’s Club meeting in San Diego, Calif. More than 200 guests, including Big Brand Tire & Service store and district managers, attended the three-day event.
The Moorpark, Calif.-based dealership, which is owned by private equity firm Percheron Capital, has added more than 230 stores over the last four years, making it one of the fastest-growing independent tire dealerships in the United States. (Percheron acquired Big Brand Tire & Service in March 2021.)
With 253 locations across eight states, Big Brand Tire & Service is the sixth largest independent tire dealership in the country, climbing from the No. 9 spot on the most recent edition of the MTD 100, published last summer.
Most of the company’s growth has come through acquisitions of other tire dealerships.
In early-April, Big Brand Tire & Service acquired Reese’s Auto, an Arizona-based business. Six months ago, it acquired Tulsa, Okla.-based Robertson Tire Co. Inc., a longstanding independent that had 14 retail stores. In September 2024, Big Brand Tire & Service entered the Texas market via its acquisition of Tires to You, which had seven stores in the Austin area.
The chain’s biggest acquisition, to date, was the purchase of 83 stores from Vernon, Calif.-based American Tire Depot in 2021.
Percheron Capital “is doubling down on our growth,” said Buscaglia. “We want to grow to 1,000 stores by 2030.”
Leaning into acquisitions
“We have a highly predictable M&A engine,” said Buscaglia.
Big Brand Tire & Service’s M&A team “is producing more than 30 NDAs (non-disclosure agreements)” with prospects “every month. We’re closing five deals a month, which means roughly 10 stores a month.”
The company finalized the acquisition of eight stores in April, including three outlets in Idaho, a new market for Big Brand Tire & Service, and it closed on an equal number of stores the previous month, Buscaglia told MTD.
He said Big Brand Tire & Service “doesn’t discriminate” between small, one-and-two-store dealerships and larger dealerships when looking to buy. “We do both,” though he noted that “the really attractive ones with 10 to 20 stores have been picked over a lot and some (others) aren’t ready to sell. You have to go where the fish are swimming.”
Regardless of store count size, “we know that if (an acquisition) meets a (specific) profile, we can run it and our success rate will be remarkably high.”
Entering into a deal, “we move quickly, we move efficiently and we’re fair in how we deal with people. Everything comes down to people. We truly do care about the legacy they’ve built. So many of these sellers have built a business for 20, 30 or 40 years and mentally they know it’s the right thing to do to move on, but emotionally they're (thinking), ‘What’s going to happen to my employees? What's going to happen to my customers? What’s going to happen to the brand name?’ We take care of a brand's name. We lean in on taking care of the employees that we’re inheriting.
“We (also) spend a good amount of time on – and we’re very thoughtful and purposeful about - rebranding. Take Robertson Tire, a brand that’s been around since 1962. While I love the Big Brand name, nobody in Tulsa knows what the heck Big Brand Tire is. But they’ve heard of Robertson Tire, (which has) great brand recognition. The trust element is there. Why would you throw that away?
“That being said, we do think there are advantages” to rebranding “some smaller (dealerships) - the one-and-two-store acquisitions, where we are tucking them into existing markets like southern California,” where the Big Brand Tire & Service name “is well-known. We’ve (also) done a handful of greenfields and will continue to do a handful strategically, here and there. But we’ve traditionally leaned into M&A.”
‘People and technology’
Buscaglia told MTD he attributes Big Brand Tire & Service’s success to two factors: people and technology.
“We have great people who are executing a great plan that we are laser-focused on. And our proprietary technology,” called EDGE, “that we put in (all newly acquired stores) on day one allows our store teams to deliver a great customer experience.”
Developed in-house and proprietary to Big Brand Tire & Service, EDGE is more than just a point-of-sale (POS) system, said Buscaglia. “It links into our inventory, it links into our tire screen – which is obviously one of the most monumental things for this space – it links into our accounting system, it links into our CRM system, it links into our text notifications for customers, it allows appointment tracking, it links into our website... and we’re starting to think about different ways to use artificial intelligence inside of EDGE to make it more efficient, whether it’s through more efficiencies in the store or more customer-facing efficiencies.
“EDGE is everything. It’s all–encompassing. It immediately creates value for both customers and employees and therefore, the company itself. And we want to push as much into it as possible.
“On the people side, we definitely lean in on providing better benefits” to both existing and newly acquired employees. “We guarantee that their compensation packages won’t go backwards. With a bigger organization, there are a lot of career path opportunities for employees. We also want (employees) to have a voice. We allow them to weigh in on our standard operating procedures. We allow them to weigh in on the technology enhancements we make. We have seven or eight developers who work on EDGE and some of the things they work on" are based on direct feedback from employees. “We let them share the knowledge they have. People want to feel that they’re part of something.”
‘Unlocking more value’
Buscaglia told MTD that Big Brand Tire & Service is “amazingly strong on the West Coast,” where the dealership was founded in 1969 and enjoys its biggest concentration of stores. (Former Big Brand Tire & Service owner Greg Robinson’s sons work for the dealership, staying on after San Francisco, Calif.-based Percheron Capital bought the company in 2021. Greg serves on Big Brand Tire & Service's board.)
“We’ll continue to fill in those markets to protect our turf ... and continue to expand in adjacent markets to where we are today and then continue to expand further east,” said Buscaglia. “I don’t anticipate us being in the northeast corridor in the next couple of years. But strategically, moving across the U.S. is something we’re looking for. We're now up to 13 stores in Texas. We think throughout all the markets in Texas, (we could have) 100 stores at some point. But we have to be smart and strategic in how we do it. We feel like the markets we’re in still have a lot of potential for more locations.”
Percheron Capital has been “amazingly supportive,” he said. “They’re more than happy to lend resources. They’re always willing to support. Our original thesis was to grow from 20 to 150 stores in five years. We’ve grown from 20 to 253 in four years.”
The overall climate for tire dealership M&A activity remains healthy, despite economic tentativeness, said Buscaglia. The environment is “still similar” to the last several years, “with maybe a slight uptick as people think, ‘There’s a little bit of uncertainty. What’s my best alternative?’”
He said Big Brand Tire & Service offers “a lot of certainty” to sellers, as well as its employees and customers. “I circle back to technology and people. In everything we do, we look at it through the lens of ‘How does it affect our employees?’ The customer experience is paramount, but your customer experience will never be as good as your employee experience. If you’re able to treat your employees the right way, they in turn will deliver a great customer experience.
"I think there are still more unlocks we have as an organization. We just hired a vice president of marketing. We’ve never had that position before. It’s (about) unlocking more value.”
