Cadillac has delayed its ‘Project Pinnacle’ for the second time, pushing back the new dealer incentive program to April 2017.
The program will see the luxury brand dramatically reduce its number of U.S. dealerships to better reflect its current sales volume. As part of Project Pinnacle, 400 of the company’s smallest dealers were offered a buyout of up to $180,000, but less than 20 accepted the deal before the Monday deadline, reports Automotive News.
These small dealerships all sold less than 50 vehicles each throughout 2015 and, despite representing 43 per cent of the brand’s local dealers, only accounted for 9 per cent of sales.
Discussing the low acceptance rate of franchise buyouts, the chairman of the Cadillac dealer council Will Churchill said: “The vast majority of people have Chevy, Buick and GMC tied in with that Cadillac store. When you see the amount of money that was put out there, it’s like a rounding error if you’ve got a Chevy store. So I think people are deciding they’ll take a roll of the dice.”
According to Cadillac chief executive Johan de Nysschen, the program was going to be implemented on October 1, but was delayed due to dealer feedback.
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