A flight to quality remains the front mission of the Street's investment banking community.

Dave has an outstanding track record of success at Ford, working closely with both the investment community and the dealership community. We believe that Dave's operational, financial management and capital markets expertise, combined with his extensive knowledge of the retail automotive business, make him a perfect fit for Sonic Automotive.

This is a large float of 23.5 million shares, and that's a lot to digest. Typically when you have large floats, the returns are muted. We were expecting a return in the range of 50 and 60 percent.

They make money. The market's going to respond heavily to this.

It represents a solid deal in an industry that's rapidly emerging. More importantly, it sets the pace for other good deals that are going to come out.

If you price it that high above range, there is hot demand. That means there was some good institutional backing to buy blocks of that stock.