9:18 am, August 20, 2025
New and used car dealer City West Country has bucked industry wide-trends to post vastly improved profits in its latest set of annual accounts.
Documents recently posted via Companies House, show that the Exeter-based retailer made a pre-tax profit of £5.42m in the year ending December 31, 2024.
That figure represents a whopping increase of more than 850% when compared to 2023, when the firm made just £564,000.
Bosses say the impressive improvement is ‘a return to normal levels’ for the dealer group, which previously made a pre-tax profit of £8.6m in 2022.
Elsewhere, turnover rose from £211.07m to £219.7m, with net assets increasing in the year by 16% to £30.05m.
Meanwhile, return on sales went from 0.7% to 2.8% and gross margins rose to 14.9%, compared to 12.4% in the previous year.
Reflecting on the period, bosses said they were ‘satisfied’ with the group’s performance in the face of a ‘challenging trading environment’
Writing in the accounts, director Gavin Walker said: ‘The year to December 2024 was a challenging trading environment with major global changes in the industry, pressure from multiple macro economic events, the settling in the UK market of the Mercedes Benz agency strategy, a change in national political outlook and a very competitive trading environment.
‘The desirability of the Mercedes Benz brand and quality of the product offering is still as strong as ever and significantly offsets the risks of the wider sector challenges.
‘Demand was strong for new and used cars and luxury products.
‘The company was agile in its response to the market conditions which together with greater control over stock acquisition and management contributed to a return to normal levels of gross profit in the used car sales environment.
‘This greatly contributed to the return to normal levels of gross profit across the company. The company continued to embrace the move to the agency model introduced by Mercedes Benz.
‘Overall, the business reported an operating profit of £6,117,000 in 2024 (against an operating profit in 2023 of £1,473,000) and a profit before tax of £5,424,000 (against a profit before tax in 2023 of £568,000).
‘After taxation and dividends, £4,080,000 has been added to reserves.
‘The directors consider the financial performance in 2024 to be satisfactory considering the wider economic climate and the extremely competitive UK motor retailing marketplace and the general cautious outlook adopted by consumers.
‘During the year the company made the strategic decision to acquire an additional Mercedes Benz LCV franchise in the South West to supplement and expand its existing Mercedes Benz LCV operations.
‘The company continued to invest in all its sites in the year and this policy will continue.’
What else is in the accounts?
City West Country has Mercedes-Benz, Smart and BYD showrooms in Exeter, Plymouth, Taunton and Truro with GMM sites in all those cities, except Truro.
2023 saw the group invest heavily in setting up the Chinese showrooms, which contributed significantly to last year’s reduced profits.
Now fully operational, the most recent accounts show that capital expenditure reduced from £1.22m to £718,000 in 2024.
When it came to staff, the workforce remained at largely the same level, averaging 647 employees throughout the year.
Staff costs totalled £22.79m, including £19.54m on wages and salaries, with directors’ remuneration coming in at £989,000.
The firm’s highest paid director received £344,446, compared to £284,924 in 2023.
