SOUTH coast automotive giant Hendy Group has snapped up three Hampshire dealerships from Alan Day Honda in a £50m deal.

All 90 staff from the three outlets in Southampton, Winchester and Portsmouth are transferring to Hendy’s now 825-strong workforce.

The massive deal, which takes Hendy’s dealership total across the south to 25, could add more than £40m to its turnover and cements its position as one of Hampshire’s top five privately-owned businesses.

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Hendy Group is bucking the trend in a motors industry reeling from an unprecedented slump in demand due to the recession.

Figures from the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders in March showed new car sales 28 per cent down – at 166,446 – over the first two months of 2009.

Against this backdrop the Southampton based Freeborn group has “relinquished” its Hyundai and Skoda franchises in the city in order to focus on its core Citroen and Romahome models.

The Alan Day Honda group has also now shrunk from five sites to just one in Enfield, north London.

Hendy boss Paul Hendy, above, said the buy-up was a demonstration of confidence the market would return.

“It is probably another 2,500 to 3,000 car sales a year and we did 24,000 cars last year in new and used and vans so it’s probably a ten per cent increase in sales volume. We did a turnover of £211m last year – so it’s 20 per cent of that.

“We’ve had a programme of expansion over the last five or six years and we’ve done at least one a year.

“We’re 150 years old this year and we are being low key about it because of the difficult times but we have been a strong and robust business and we can see a future.

“There are some signs already that things are getting better.”

Already the owner of a Honda franchise in Exeter in Devon, Hendy also has eight of the Ford dealerships for which it is best known, two Mazda outlets as well as two Kia franchises and purpose-built truck, bodyshop and parts operations throughout the south and south west.

Founded in a bicycle repair shop in Whitchurch in 1859, it was the UK’s first ever Ford dealer. The business is still run by the grandsons of its founder.