Ernest García II (born May 1, 1957) is an American billionaire businessman, in the used car sector. He is the owner of

DriveTime DriveTime Automotive Group Inc. is an American used car retailer and finance company. It is based in Tempe, Arizona, and sells and finances cars to customers around the nation. The company was formerly known as Ugly Duckling and was renamed Driv ...

(originally named UglyDuckling), and a major shareholder of

Carvana Carvana is an online used car retailer based in Tempe, Arizona. The company is the fastest growing online used car dealer in the United States and is known for its multi-story car vending machines. Carvana was named to the 2021 ''Fortune 500' ...

. In 1990 he pled guilty to a felony bank fraud charge for his role in the

Lincoln Savings and Loan Association Lincoln most commonly refers to: * Lincoln (president), Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865), the sixteenth president of the United States * Lincoln, England, cathedral city and county town of Lincolnshire, England * Lincoln, Nebraska, the capital of Neb ...

collapse. As of April 2022, his net worth was estimated at US$7.2 billion.

Early life

Ernest García II was born May 1, 1957, the son of Ernest Garcia, who co-owned a liquor store with Frank Colaianni, and was once the mayor of

Gallup, New Mexico Zuni: ''Kalabwaki'' , settlement_type = City , nickname = "Indian Capital of the World" , motto = , image_skyline = Gallup, New Mexico.jpg , imagesize = 250px , image_caption ...

. He dropped out, but eventually earned a bachelor's degree from the

University of Arizona The University of Arizona (Arizona, U of A, UArizona, or UA) is a public land-grant research university in Tucson, Arizona. Founded in 1885 by the 13th Arizona Territorial Legislature, it was the first university in the Arizona Territory. T ...

Career

In October 1990, García, then a

Tucson , "(at the) base of the black ill , nicknames = "The Old Pueblo", "Optics Valley", "America's biggest small town" , image_map = , mapsize = 260px , map_caption = Interactive map ...

-based real estate developer pleaded guilty to a felony bank fraud charge for his role as a

straw borrower A straw borrower is a United States term for an individual whose name, social security number, and credit history are used to hide the identity of the organizers of a for-profit mortgage fraud scheme. Straw buyers are also used in order to obtai ...

in the collapse of

Charles Keating Charles Humphrey Keating Jr. (December 4, 1923 – March 31, 2014) was an American sportsman, lawyer, real estate developer, banker, financier, conservative activist, and convicted felon best known for his role in the savings and loan sca ...

. Garcia "fraudulently obtained a $30-million line of credit in a series of transactions that also helped Lincoln hide its ownership in risky desert Arizona land from regulators." Garcia spent three years on probation, and he and his firm filed for bankruptcy. In 1991, García bought

Ugly Duckling "The Ugly Duckling" ( da, Den grimme ælling) is a Danish literary fairy tale by Danish poet and author Hans Christian Andersen (1805–1875). It was first published on 11 November 1843 in '' New Fairy Tales. First Volume. First Collection'' ...

, a bankrupt rent-a-car franchise, for under $1 million and merged it with his own fledgling finance company, and turned it into a company selling and financing used cars for sub-prime buyers with poor credit history. Garcia took the company

public In public relations and communication science, publics are groups of individual people, and the public (a.k.a. the general public) is the totality of such groupings. This is a different concept to the sociological concept of the ''Öffentlichkei ...

on the

NASDAQ The Nasdaq Stock Market () (National Association of Securities Dealers Automated Quotations Stock Market) is an American stock exchange based in New York City. It is the most active stock trading venue in the US by volume, and ranked second ...

exchange in 1996, trading under the ticker "UGLY". In 1999, Garcia was involved in six lawsuits alleging he had "abused his position to profit" from a real estate deal where he ultimately acquired 17 company properties at a 10% discount. In 2002, Garcia and the former Ugly Duckling CEO, Gregory Sullivan, took the company private and renamed it

. As of April 2021, García's net worth is estimated at $15.9 billion. It was announced in September 2021 that Garcia had sold more than $3.6 billion of Carvana stock since the previous October, which amounted to 16% of his holdings in the company.

Personal life

He is married, and lives in

Tempe, Arizona , settlement_type = City , named_for = Vale of Tempe , image_skyline = Tempeskyline3.jpg , imagesize = 260px , image_caption = Tempe skyline as se ...

. His son,

Ernest Garcia III Ernest C. Garcia III (born 1982/1983) is an American businessman, and the CEO and co-founder of Carvana. Early life and education Ernest Garcia III is the son of Ernest Garcia II. He earned a bachelor's degree in Management Science and Engineer ...

, is CEO of

. Garcia owns an apartment in New York's

Trump Tower Trump Tower is a 58-story, mixed-use skyscraper at 721–725 Fifth Avenue in the Midtown Manhattan neighborhood of New York City, between East 56th and 57th Streets. The building contains the headquarters for the Trump Organization, as well ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:García, Ernest Living people American company founders American billionaires 1957 births University of Arizona alumni American fraudsters People from Tempe, Arizona