7:52 am, May 24, 2023
Bosses at the family-run Sinclair Group say they are ‘proud’ after accounts showed an ‘impressive and successful’ year.
Documents filed with Companies House showed that the Welsh dealer group grew significantly in the 12 months to the end of December 2022.
The firm expanded into England for the very first time and also saw a small rise in its profits, following significant investment.
The accounts, for Sinclair Motor Holdings, showed the Pencoed-based retailer made a pre-tax profit of £12.66m last year, compared to £12.63m in 2021.
Turnover also rose from from £544.38m in the previous year to £559.12m in 2022.
The majority of that revenue was generated by used vehicle sales, which brought in £303.73m, compared to new car sales which generated £196.68m. Elsewhere, the firm made £59.1m from ‘repairs and other sales’.
The Car Dealer Top 100 outfit also set out on a major expansion programme, which saw it acquire fellow dealer group Shukers, representing Land Rover in Aberystwyth and Ludlow as well as Hyundai solely in Aberystwyth.
The Ludlow business, in Shropshire, is Sinclair’s first dealership outside of Wales.
As a result of the growth, 2022 saw a rise in staff numbers from 760 to 777 with wages and salaries costing £3.28m.
In a statement included in the accounts, director Andrew Sinclair expressed pride at what had been achieved last year.
However, he admitted that the period had been impacted by new car supply issues which dogged the industry throughout 2022.
He said: ‘The year of 2022, has resulted in another impressive and successful result for our group and a year we are extremely proud of.
‘Not only have we been able to grow the financial result of the group, we have also been able to grow the size of our group with the acquisition of Shukers Ltd.
‘Shukers was a business that represented Land Rover in Aberystwyth and Ludlow and Hyundai in Aberystwyth. The Shukers business was a very successful privately owned business and represented a great opportunity for our further expansion.
‘With the acquisition, we were able to double the representation points of our Land Rover business and in doing so strengthen a key part of our group. We were also able to launch our very first Hyundai business, which is a brand we are very excited to add to the group.
‘The Hyundai brand is going from strength to strength in the UK and we are very proud to add this to our portfolio of strong brands.
‘These new sites result in our geographical coverage extending in Wales further north to Aberystwyth and in Ludlow having our first business across the border into England.’
He added: ‘The new car supply challenge continued throughout 2022 and the ongoing worldwide shortage of semiconductors. This shortage has had an ongoing impact for all our manufacturer partners and has resulted in significant reductions in new car production and supply.
‘Whilst all manufacturers have been affected differently, all have witnessed a significant impact across all of 2022.
‘The results of this on our group has meant that throughout 2022 we have received somewhat less than we would have budgeted to receive.
In normal times this would have had a significant impact on our retail sites new car profitability. However, due to a shortage of product supply, our unit profitability result was far ahead of expectations and this uplift in unit profit more than compensated for the lack of volume.
‘The result was our new car departments performed ahead of budgeted expectations and had a strong result in 2022.’
Pictured: Andrew Sinclair
