General RV CEO Loren Baidas is headed west this week from the company’s Michigan headquarters to celebrate a grand opening in Utah. Along the way, he will visit the family-owned chain’s newest stores in Colorado and Arizona.
Lazydays Holdings, Inc. last week closed on the sale of its Longmont, Colorado, location to General RV. The closing marked the final transaction completion of the previously announced three stores to General RV, which included locations in Fort Pierce, Florida, and Mesa, Arizona.
Baidas’ agenda for the week calls for a stop in Arizona today, a ribbon-cutting in South Weber, Utah, on Wednesday and a visit to Longmont on Friday. He said buying the stores was a strategic decision as the company continues to grow.
“We are a family-owned and operated company, so we do not have quarterly numbers we have to hit for investors or a mandate for how big we need to get,” he said. “Growth for us is more about making sure it makes sense and making sure if we’re going to do something that it adds value to the company overall. Our goal is not to be the biggest. It never has been and never will be. Our goal is to be the best.”
Lazydays interim CEO Ron Fleming said, “We have completed the last of our previously announced sales to General RV with the closing of our location in Longmont, Colorado. The closing of this transaction allows Lazydays to focus on our streamlined footprint, including our legacy store in Loveland, Colorado, which we have operated for nearly 10 years. We again thank General RV for this expeditious and smooth transaction process.”
Workers at each store in the sale can expect to remain after the transition.
“We are excited about the people we have added as employees in our organization at these locations that are now ours,” Baidas said. “We think we have an opportunity to grow all three of those locations significantly and have the opportunity to be one of the best, if not the best, dealerships in those markets. We are going to need to add more individuals to do that, because those stores are going to continue to grow.”
In the past three years, General RV has nearly doubled its number of stores nationwide provides sales and service of thousands of RVs. The company has locations in nine states, including Florida, Illinois, Ohio, Virginia, Utah, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Arizona and Michigan.
In the deal with Lazydays, the company also acquired its first supercenter in Arizona and a new facility in Florida. The Longmont location, north of the Denver metro area, is General RV’s first in Colorado.
General RV started with a lone gas station owned by Baidas’ grandfather in 1953 and has grown to include 23 RV dealerships.
“Every company starts from one place and one person,” Baidas said. “It is a blessing that we got into the industry when we did. It is amazing what my grandfather started and then the second generation, my dad and uncle, continued to grow the business. Hopefully, I can put my spin on the company and leave this place better than when it was given to me.”
