Inchcape has announced the acquisition of the Robert Smith Group and its subsidiaries.

The new deal means Inchcape will own six Mercedes-Benz dealerships and one Smart dealership.

The cost is approximately £18.1m, subject to finalisation of completion accounts, and includes around £7.2m in respect of goodwill.

With this latest acquisition, Inchcape now has the largest single territory in the UK for Mercedes-Benz with 14 dealerships.

The new Inchcape dealerships are in: Liverpool, Warrington, Chester, Southport, West Kirby and Llandudno. These sites generated a total of 1,100 units sold in 2004.

Peter Johnson, group chief executive of Inchcape, says: “This acquisition demonstrates our commitment to build upon our relationship with Mercedes-Benz, and leaves us well placed to continue delivering on our growth strategy of representing between 5% to 10%of our chosen partners’ national sales volumes.

“Inchcape’s success in building scale contiguous territories should result in enhanced returns for our shareholders whilst, importantly, improving our service levels to our customers.”