Dealer consolidation continued in a big way in 2018 and H&R Agri-Power and Ag-Pro Companies made the biggest moves in 2018.

H&R Agri-Power, the 18 store Case IH dealer based in Hopkinsville, Ky., acquired 4 dealerships last year, including 4R Equipment, JL Farm Equipment, Tri-County Farmers Equipment and Yearwood Equipment. In all, the dealership added 6 stores in Illinois, Indiana and Tennessee.

While Boston, Ga., based Ag-Pro Companies had fewer acquisitions in 2018, it added more dealer locations at 11. Ag-Pro acquired Wilson Equipment in Spartansburg, S.C. In addition, it acquired 10 stores in Ohio and Kentucky from JD Equipment this past December.

Prior to the deal with Ag-Pro, JD Equipment had acquired 2 stores from Cahall Brothers Inc. in June and added an $800,000 expansion to its Zanesville, Ohio, store.

The Ag-Pro move in acquiring JD Equipment is probably the most noteworthy. Prior to the JD acquisition, all of the dealership’s stores were clustered in the Southeast and southern Texas. The most recent acquisition takes them into an entirely new region of the country. 

Ag-Pro is the largest North American dealer when measured by total locations. The company operates 22 locations in Georgia, 20 in Texas, 9 in Florida, 7 in Alabama, 4 in South Carolina and now 10 in Ohio. The dealership group, with headquarters in Boston, Ga., also operates a rental outlet in Georgia and according to its website it also has 4 new locations on the drawing board: 2 in Georgia, 1 in Texas and 1 in Florida.