12:32 pm, September 28, 2022
Sytner Group enjoyed a 77 per cent rise in pre-tax profit to more than £178m last year as the pandemic impact eased.
In its accounts for the year ended December 31, 2021, which have just been published on the Companies House website, the company, which operates used car supermarkets under the CarShop banner plus franchised dealerships, said its profit before tax went up from £100.4m in 2020 to £178.1m in 2021.
That was on an 18 per cent revenue increase from £4.9bn to £5.8bn for the business that is ranked second in the Car Dealer Top 100.
Group operating profit, meanwhile, rocketed by 64 per cent from £114.2m to £187.4m.
During the year, Sytner, which is headquartered in Leicester and owned by Penske Automotive Group, sold 51,726 new cars and 122,096 used – increases of 1.6 per cent and 13.3 per cent respectively – making a total of 173,822 vehicles.
Highlights during the year included being given the opportunity to represent Bugatti in Manchester as well as acquiring used car supermarket Autoworld Willenhall from Renault Retail Group.
The latter was immediately closed for refurbishment, rebranding, recruitment and training, and it reopened as CarShop Wolverhampton in October.
Sytner furloughed some employees during the national lockdown, which lasted from January to April, but said all claims made under the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme had since been repaid so weren’t included in the financial breakdown. During 2020, it claimed £45.457m.
Nevertheless, the average monthly number of employees across the group fell by three per cent last year from 9,466 to 9,155.
In the accompanying report, chief financial officer Adam Collinson said that ‘although the full impact that Covid-19 will have on the company [is] difficult to predict due to numerous uncertainties, the threat to operations from Covid-19 appears to be diminishing in comparison to the previous year’.
Looking ahead, Collinson said the group’s focus was ‘to organically grow the business, along with its franchise partners, and to progress acquisitions where opportunities arise’.
