ASX-listed automotive company AMA Group calls Gold Coast home after moving to Bundall Rd

The Gold Coast has become home to another ASX-listed company, with an automotive firm valued at more than $780 million moving into a Bundall office building.

130 Bundall Rd, Bundall.

THE Gold Coast has become home to another listed company, with the AMA Group moving into a Bundall office building bought by its CEO for $11 million.

AMA, an automotive after-care group which has 120 panel shops in its portfolio, has moved from Clontarf in Brisbane.

Its new home is two floors in the six-level 130 Bundall Rd building, which was sold in a deal cloaked in confidentiality in January.

The $11 million sale, which settled earlier this month, was to a company controlled by AMA chief executive Andrew Hopkins, a 52-year-old Englishman based in Perth.

Efforts to contact Mr Hopkins for his reasons for the Gold Coast move have been unsuccessful.

AMA has evolved out of company Allomark, which joined the ASX in 2006.

The company, which has market capitalisation just shy of $785 million, has been on a rapid expansion phase, buying existing panel shops and opening new ones.

Its acquisitions have included the nation’s largest accident repair group, Gemini, in 2015.

Mr Hopkins told the ASX last month that AMA had acquired more than 20 businesses or sites in the June half.

130 Bundall Rd.

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A fortnight ago he said the group had entered a new five-year supply agreement with RACQ.

AMA is believed to have five Gold Coast panel shops, including the Mark McHugh Body Works business at Bundall, which was bought in early 2017.

The company had revenue of $303 million in the June half, netted $9.94 million, and announced a half cent a share dividend.

Its Bundall HQ is atop an office block built in the 1980s and which was extensively refurbished more than two years ago.

Building owner Mr Hopkins founded the Gemini group in Perth in 2009 and at the end of the 2017-18 year held more than 50 million shares in AMA.

He sold down his holding when AustralianSuper and Myer Family Investments joined the share registry last year.

Mr Hopkins has bought the largely vacant Bundall Rd property through WA-based company Bundall Road.

The buy was agreed to in January but details of the buyer and price were not revealed.

The seller was 130 Bundall Road Pty Ltd, associated with former Sydney developer and one-time Manly Sea Eagles owner Max Delmege.

The Delmege entity bought the property for $7.5 million in 2017 and prepared a plan to strata-title it, even advertising the individual stratas.

The Delmege Agency business is advertising space to lease in the building, ranging from 77 sqm to whole floors.