“Can the dominant US auto-dealer DMS incumbent become the payments and F&I workflow layer for auto retail before best-of-breed challengers unbundle it?”
CDK Global was spun out of ADP in 2014 as a standalone dealer management systems (DMS) vendor for auto dealerships. After years as a public company, Brookfield Business Partners took it private in a 2022 $8.3B deal. CDK is a vertical SaaS platform for automotive retail: DMS, F&I, CRM, digital retail, fixed operations, and dealer payment processing (CDK ePayments, CDK SimplePay). Its embedded finance angle is dealer-facing payment acceptance and F&I lender orchestration through the Fortellis API marketplace — not a fintech-style BaaS or issuing program.