Right: Greg Roebuck

GREG Roebuck, the man who conceived the Carsales business model in Australia that drove a stake through the heart of newspaper classified advertising for cars, is to retire from the company in March.

Mr Roebuck, in the mid-1990s as a director and senior executive at the dealer IT management system specialist, Reynolds & Reynolds (now Pentana), came up with the idea of linking internet classified used-car advertising listings for car dealerships to the used-car inventory control systems residing in the Reynolds’ dealer management systems (DMS).

While it was early days for internet car advertising, administration of online used-car listings was time-consuming and inefficient. Cars already sold would still be listed for weeks after they left the dealership leading wags to quip that cars on the internet have “already been sold three times”.

Mr Roebuck developed the concept of linking the used-car inventory management system in the the Reynolds DMS with the generation of internet listings so that when a car was taken into stock in the dealership it was automatically listed online and, when it was removed from stock in the DMS, it was delisted from the website.

Mr Roebuck’s boss, Wal Pisciotta, bought into the concept and he enthusiastically laid the way for the launch of Carsales.com.au which, in the late 1990s raised $8 million from car dealers and other industry players to fund the launch of what is now the established form of used-car advertising.

It was a disaster for print media. Both News Corp and Fairfax Media, the dominant players in newspaper used-car classified advertising saw their rivers of gold turn to rivers of silt. Today neither company retains ownership of an online car classified business model.

Last year Fairfax sold its online classified car advertising business to the Pettiona family which founded Discount New Cars, an online website that was subsequently bought by Carsales for $21 million.

In December, Australia’s leading dealer groups raised $20 million to buyout News Corp’s share of the CarsGuide website, which has now been merged into a new company, Cox Automotive Australia.

Since the founding of Carsales in 1997 it has grown into the dominant player in car classifieds in Australia with a market capitalisation of $2.7 billion dollars and 800 employees operating in nine countries.

Meanwhile, Carsales has appointed its present chief operating office, Cameron McIntyre, as the new chief executive officer and managing director. He will take up the role when Mr Roebuck leaves on March 17.

Mr McIntyre, 46, joined Carsales in 2007 as the chief financial officer and company secretary and in this role played a key part in the listing of Carsales.com Ltd on the ASX..

He was appointed chief operating officer in 2014 and took on oversight of Carsales editorial and marketing, as well as Red Book and data services.

Mr McIntyre previously worked as the finance director at Sensis, the directories business owned by Telstra.

By John Mellor

Left to right: Outgoing CEO and MD of Carsales, Greg Roebuck, Carsales chairman Jeffrey Browne, and newly appointed CEO and MD Cameron McIntyre.