LKQ Corp., a publicly traded auto parts firm, has purchased Car World, located at 134 Raymond Road in Candia, from Jeffrey S. Kantor.

Terms of the sale were undisclosed.

“All the employees will be remaining there which was important to me,” said Kantor, who will be 69 in July, in a telephone interview. There are about 20 employees.

“We not only look at the quantitative side of our acquisitions but the qualitative side of our acquisitions. Obviously Jeff built an exceptional business that we are excited to add to the LKQ network,” Joseph P. Boutross, LKQ’s director of investor relations, said.

Kantor built the business from his 1977 purchase of Murray’s Auto Parts, then near the Massabesic Traffic Circle in Manchester, where Capital Auto Auction is now.

He changed the named to Car World in 1990 and moved the business to Candia.

Kantor, who is still working as a consultant to LKQ Car World, said, the business is donating a motor home to the Loki Wolf refuge in Chatham on Monday.

Kantor, a Dunbarton resident, has been active in the New Hampshire Prostate Cancer Coalition since being diagnosed and treated for prostate cancer 13 years ago.

Kantor said he decided to sell the business after learning about a year ago that the disease had returned and spread.

“That’s why I’m so active with the prostate cancer coalition because men don’t think about prostate cancer,” he said. The coalition is running an ad this Sunday — Father’s Day — urging men to go talk to their doctors.

LKQ also owns LKQ Keystone Automotive at 101 E. Industrial Park Drive in Manchester.

Chicago-based LKQ is traded on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol LKQ. It operates more than 450 facilities, with a presence in the United Kingdom, Canada, Mexico and Central America.

dpaiste@unionleader.com