Autochek acquires online car services, Cheki Nigeria and Ghana from ROAM

Autochek, an automotive technology company has announced its acquisition of car marketplaces Cheki Nigeria and Cheki Ghana. The company stated that the marketplaces which was previously part of ROAM Africa’s portfolio (Ringier One Africa Media), Cheki’s parent company will be relaunched by the end of 2020.

The acquisition will see Autochek take ownership and operational control of Cheki Nigeria and Cheki Ghana business while all of the outlets will be rebranded as Autochek. Meanwhile the marketplace, Cheki Kenya remains fully owned and operated by ROAM Africa. According to a statement shared with smepeaks, this doesn’t affect the current Cheki Nigeria and Cheki Ghana teams as Nigeria’s current CEO, Chimezie Okonkwo, who was appointed last year will continue with the new company.

With the acquisition, Autochek says it plans to build digital solutions that will enhance and enable a seamless and safe automotive commerce experience across Africa, starting with Nigeria and Ghana. Additionally, the company noted that it wants to address the issue of credit penetration in the auto market by making auto financing more accessible to consumers across Africa.

“We are really excited by this new opportunity to drive the African automotive space forward. The Cheki brand is well established in Nigeria and Ghana, and we look forward to building on the solid work that the Cheki team has done over the last ten years in reinventing how car purchases are made. Our goal is to continue the great work, as well as expand operations into other African territories from 2021 onwards,” says Etop Ikpe, CEO of Autochek regarding the acquisition.

While Clemens Weitz, the CEO of ROAM Africa, said, “With Autochek, we have found a company and founding team that will carry on the incredible results Cheki has achieved in Nigeria and Ghana over the last decade in developing a specialist car marketplace, loved and trusted by both car buyers and sellers.”

In other news, last week, there were opinions about how Etop Ikpe, the former co-founder and CEO of Cars45 resigned from the company as well as other 11 staff members. A report by Weetracker says Cars45 — an online marketplace that help users evaluate, buy, and sell used cars — in now-deleted post on its Instagram and Twitter pages disassociated itself from the 11 former employees who are believed to be executives.

However, seeing that Etop is now the CEO of Autochek, it’s quite obvious that he exited Cars45 to launch the automotive company.

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