History in Finland
YHTEISVARASTO OY
In the 1950s Finland’s vehicle fleet grew strongly. As traffic levels grew also accident quantities grew. Centralized storing of redeemed vehicles became topical.
Automobile Insurance Association (Autovakuutusliitto) set up a committee to consider setting up a central warehouse. In 1965, Finnish insurance companies were asked to become shareholders. Finally, on February 4, 1966, Yhteisvarasto Oy was entered in the Finnish Trade Register, which started with five employees. There were 17 founding shareholders. At that time the company operated on an 8400 m2 rental property in Vantaa. In 1967 the company bought their own land from Espoo, on which a dismantling site was also built. Cleaning and selling dismantled parts employed Yhteisvarasto Oy a lot.
In the 1970s, attitudes influenced the use of spare parts from dismantled vehicles. When the invoice was paid by someone else, it was difficult for the motorist to accept the use of spare parts from dismantled vehicles. From 1974 onwards, the motorists themselves had to pay the difference between the price of the new parts and the spare parts from dismantled vehicles. Vehicles on the countryside were sold from collection points along the main road.
AUTOVAHINKOKESKUS OY
By the 1980s, the company's name was changed with the Limited Company Law. Autovahinkokeskus Oy (AVK, Car Accident Center) described the company's operations better. There were 33 employees, 12 of whom worked in the Insurance Companies' Car Repair Commission on the same premises. The role of the commission was to develop repair methods to keep costs under control. In 1983, the company's first computer was introduced. The operations expanded to Pirkkala in the late 1980s.
In the 1990s, the End-of-Life Vehicles Directive was put into operation in the EU. The directive had a significant impact on the environmentally friendly handling of vehicles. In the middle of the decade, AVK started selling tire kits. The www.avk.fi website was launched in 1997.
At the turn of the millennium, Autovahinkokeskus started independent pricing of vehicles. Autovahinkokeskus was awarded the environmental certificate as the first operator in the vehicle industry in Finland. Logistics operations were started in 2004 and a year later the first sublot was established in Oulu. The Extranet for logistics and warehousing operations was launched in 2005 for Insurance Companies.
In 2010, damage inspection operations were launched. The following year, a fire and fraud investigation were also launched. Autovahinkokeskus also started quality inspections of repaired cars. In 2011, Autovahinkokeskus opened a webshop. The auctions started in 2013 and a new updated webshop a year later. Operations expanded to a fourth Copart location in Turku in 2017.
COPART SUOMI OY
On March 9, 2018, Copart's global business expanded to Finland when Copart Inc. acquired Autovahinkokeskus Oy. With the acquisition, the company’s operations began to update in line with Copart when in 2018 membership model was introduced. On June 3, 2019, the name of Autovahinkokeskus Oy was officially changed to Copart Suomi Oy. Major renovations were carried out at Espoo and Pirkkala as the company prepared for the new Copart auctions. On October 1, 2019, a new auction platform was published at Copart.fi. Two weeks later, on 15 October 2019, the first new Copart Finland auction was held. Today, there are more than 20 sublot facilities throughout Finland. Copart Suomi Oy's head office still operates on the premises purchased in 1967 in Espoo.
History in the USA and internationally
COPART INC.
Copart was founded in 1982 by Willis J. Johnson. Johnson, with his entrepreneurial spirit, along with a strong work ethic and a passion for change, started Copart with just one salvage yard in California. In 1994, he took Copart public (NASDAQ: "CPRT"), raising the money needed to expand the company. The development of VB3, Copart’s online auction system, transformed Copart from a salvage vehicle auction company into a company offering a global remarketing platform that links Buyers and Sellers around the world.
Now Copart is a leader in online vehicle remarketing for 35 years and now trades more than two million vehicles a year worldwide via the virtual bidding technology, VB3. The US company, headquartered in Dallas, Texas, employs more than 5,000 people in over 200 locations throughout the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, United Arab Emirates, Brazil, Ireland, Spain, Germany and now Finland.
