8:55 am, July 29, 2025
Johnsons Cars saw turnover accelerate towards the £1bn mark last year, despite pre-tax profits continuing to fall thanks to ‘numerous challenging headwinds’ that included agency sales.
The business, which is in the process of being acquired by Brayleys owner Athenaeum International Holdings Ltd, saw turnover top £985.4m in the year ending December 31, 2024, up from £935m in 2023.
While revenue jumped, pre-tax profits slumped to the tune of nearly £4m – down from £7.8m in 2023 to £3.8m in 2024.
It was the second successive year of pre-tax falls, with the company booking a £12.95m pre-tax profit in 2022, which was a record-breaking year for the Redditch-based business.
Directors did not give a figure for new car sales, but did say that Motability sales grew by 33% and fleet sales by 9%, ‘compensating for the falls in new retail unit sales’.
Used car sales, meanwhile, grew by 7%, although per unit margins dropped by 22%, resulting in a £3m decline in gross profit overall.
Directors singled out agency sales and new EV sales as challenges during the year, declaring: ‘Agency is still in its infancy and though a true conclusion cannot be drawn our financial results tell us it will not enhance earnings.’
On the subject of new EVs, directors said that the effect on the company was ‘two-fold’, with business users seeing new EVs as attractive because of tax benefits, while private retail customers have ‘not engaged to a level that will deliver significant volume’.
The 2024 accounts will be last from the business operating independently.
Johnsons – which operates dealerships across the south of England, West Midlands and the north west, and holds franchises with Abarth, Alfa Romeo, Ford, Volkswagen, Seat, Skoda, Cupra, Honda, Hyundai, Jeep, Mazda, Seat, Skoda, Suzuki, Volkswagen and Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles – exchanged contracts with Athenaeum International Holdings – part of the wider Dubai-based AW Rostamani investment group – in April 2025.
In February of this year, it sold its four Toyota and Lexus dealerships to Group 1 Automotive for £13m.
Meanwhile, in May, it bought a Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles business in Bilston from Greenhouse Group for £712,000, and last month its Birmingham TPS subsidiary bought TPS Derby from Read Motor Group for ‘a small amount’, adding its fourth TPS business to its operations.
