Pendragon PLC is a multi-national operator of franchised motorcar dealerships in the United Kingdom with international outlets in the United States. This member of the Pendragon Group focuses on a variety of luxury cars marketed under the Stratstone name which include Porsche, Ferrari, and BMW. Other brands are marketed as Evans Halshaw which is the largest Vauxhall retailer in the UK. The company's registered office is at Annesley, Nottingham, Nottinghamshire, England.
The company is listed on the FTSE 250 index and once had Sir Nigel Rudd as company Chair.
Pendragon was formed on the 4 October 1989. For the year ended 31 December, 2006 across over 320 franchised dealerships, turnover was £5,101 million, while profits were £96.4 million before tax and £67.5 million after tax.
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In 2000 Pendragon launched its U.S. market entry with the acquisition of Bauer Jaguar in Santa Ana California. At the time Bauer was the third largest Jaguar retailer in the country. Pendragon would then proceed to drive out a proven management team to be replaced by personnel from the U.K. who had absolutely no understanding of American automotive market operations. In January 2009 Pendragon would close Bauer and walk away from the last two years of their lease on the property. Pendragon would continue a disastrous legacy of overpaying for and micromanaging their U.S. dealerships resulting in extremely high turnover of dealership personnel and massive revenue loses. Eventually Pendragon would be forced to either sell or walk away from many of their U.S. based dealerships.[citation needed]
In January 2006, Lookers offered 875p per share for Reg Vardy. However, Pendragon offered a counter bid of 900p a share, which succeeded after Lookers decided it could not raise its bid.
During the bidding battle for Reg Vardy, on 14 December 2005 Pendragon offered 1.1 new Pendragon shares for each existing Lookers share. Pendragon Group was the proposed name for the entity produced via the acquisition of Lookers and Reg Vardy with the existing Pendragon operations.
On 12 January 2006, Pendragon made a revised indicative offer to Lookers (the 'Revised Proposed Offer'). The exchange ratio in the Revised Proposed Offer was 1.15 new Pendragon shares for each Lookers share.[1]
Pendragon has a large contract hire business in the UK, operating under the brands of Pendragon Contracts, Bramall Contracts and Vardy Contract Motoring.
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Pendragon or Pen Draig, meaning in Welsh "head (Pen) dragon (Draig) " or "chief dragon" (a figurative title referring to status as a leader and shortened from Pen y Ddraig (pronounced Thraig soft 'th' as in 'then')), is the name of several traditional Kings of the Britons:
In the Historia Regum Britanniae, one of the earliest texts of the Arthurian legend, only Uther is given the surname "Pendragon", which is explained as meaning "dragon's head".
In the prose version of Robert de Boron's Merlin, the name of Uther's elder brother Ambrosius is given as "Pendragon", while Uter (Uther) changes his name after his brother's death to "Uterpendragon".
For the series written by D. J. MacHale, see The Pendragon Adventure.
The Pendragon fiction series was a trade paperback line that offered reprints of "lost" classics of Arthurian fiction, as well as original novels and anthologies. First published by Chaosium, the line was taken over by Green Knight Publishing when they acquired rights to the Pendragon role-playing game in 1998. Scholar Raymond H. Thompson served as consulting editor for the entire series. Green Knight hired James Lowder to direct the line as executive editor in 1999.
The Pendragon Adventure is a young adult series of ten science fiction/fantasy novels by D. J. MacHale published from 2002-2009. The series made the New York Times #10 Best Seller list and has sold over a million copies.
They follow the chronicles of Bobby Pendragon, an American teenager who discovers that he, as well as his two best friends, Mark Dimond and Courtney Chetwynde, must prevent the destruction of the ten "territories": distinct but interrelated space-time realities. Each book deals with the battle over a particular territory, fought between Bobby's side—including the lead protectors of each territory, called Travelers—and the forces of Saint Dane, a demon who exploits a decisive "turning point" in each territory's history. At this turning point, Saint Dane steps in to guide each territory towards utter destruction; it is up to Bobby Pendragon and his allies to stop or reverse Saint Dane's sinister efforts.
The series has ten books: The Merchant of Death, The Lost City of Faar, The Never War, The Reality Bug, Black Water, The Rivers of Zadaa, The Quillan Games, The Pilgrims of Rayne, Raven Rise, and The Soldiers of Halla. The novels use the first-person journals in which Bobby Pendragon recounts the events of his adventure to his loyal friends as well as a third-person narrative to tell the stories of characters other than Bobby. Each book of the series repeatedly alternates between these two narrative techniques.