4:10 pm, April 22, 2026
Staff at Lookers claim they face the threat of redundancies across multiple divisions of the sprawling car dealer group.
Leaked messages from staff claim Lookers will be imminently consulting with staff as the company attempts to service its huge debt pile.
An insider claims ‘staff at dealership level in the firm’s Ford and Volkswagen divisions are facing redundancy’.
They have also claimed that ‘divisional and dealership finance roles’ are at threat of redundancy as ‘accounting is set to be moved to India’.
All the claims have been put to Lookers, but the dealer group has not responded to repeated requests for comment.
Lookers staff last faced the threat of redundancy, and Christmas parties scrapped for the second year running, at the end of 2024.
The former Car Dealer Top 100 retailer was bought by Global Auto Holdings in late 2023 and immediately upset employees my cancelling festive bashes and announcing mass redundancies.
Disgruntled staff have consistently contacted Car Dealer since the takeover and had previously claimed that major cost cutting at the firm had seen morale tumble.
Former VW Group UK boss Alex Smith runs the business as executive chairman after former managing director James Brearley left the company in October.
Accounts for the firm bounced back from a £1.8m loss in 2023 last year.
Documents filed via Companies House in September showed Lookers Limited made a pre-tax profit of £43.7m in 2024 – a whopping rise of 2,527.7%.
The result came despite a drop in revenue, with income decreasing from £4.49bn to £4.29bn.
The firm previously reported turnover of £4.59bn in 2023 but has now amended the figure after changing the way it calculates revenue from insurance and warranty sales.
