Ricarts dealin` for diversification

Ricarts dealin' for diversification
By Kathy Showalter
BUSINESS FIRST
It would make perfect sense for Ricart
Automotive Group to go public, says coowner Fred Ricart.
After all, company officials anticipate
gross revenues for 1998 will reach the
$700 million range.
But Ricart, who has
Ricart Automotive
branded
his "We're
Group co-owner
dealin'
"
image
so much
Fred Ricart:
that he's among the
"People buy
Freds. They don't most recognizable public figures in Central
buy the Ford.
Ohio, says it's not likely
They buy the
to happen.
dealer. There's a
trust factor
Instead Ricart and his
there."
brother, Rhett, are diverTHE LIST: RESIDENTIAL
sifying the Ricart Automotive base,
branching into automobile financing,
insurance sales, cellular telephone sales
and service, and recreational vehicle sales.
When they have the time, they're still
in the market for new franchises to add to
their "mega mall" line of new cars.
Ricart enterprises include:
• Ricart Automotive Group, which
encompasses eight new-car franchises,
several used-car locations and Ricart Vanland, which sells another 11 lines of RVs
and conversion vans. In 1997, Ricart
reported it sold and leased almost 30,000.
new and used cars.
MORTGAGE
see
Ricart,
LENDERS,
page 54
24
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