07 February 2022

DS Automobiles has just completed workshop seven of a nine-topic collaboration with retailers covering the switch from a franchised to an agency model, according to UK managing director Jules Tilstone.

Setting out the timeline for the move to agency agreements to Auto Retail Agenda, Mr Tilstone said the manufacturer and retailers across Europe had recently attend workshop seven in a series of nine. A spokesman for DS added the workshop meetings were “not a negotiation” and that despite being numbered were not being run in sequential order.

“We will move to agency on 1 June 2023,” said Mr Tilstone.

“We’re going through a process at the moment with European workshops within the network to see how it can work in various areas of the business.

“For example, we had the digital workshop yesterday, which was number seven of nine.

“These will finish and we’ll look at the output, then talk with the European dealer councils about what the agency agreement looks like. But we need to see the final Block Exemption Regulations that’s due in May.

“From there we’ll move to contracts which will be issued in the first half of 2023,” said Mr Tilstone.

Commenting on the retailer reaction to the move to agency, he added: “If we don’t offer the best retail model then we won’t attract the best dealers. We see no major barriers for new investors and all the existing dealers so far have said it’s probably the right decision for DS.”

Tags: agency model, DS