7:30 am, November 6, 2024
Marshall Motor Group saw profit before tax plummet 62% last year as it revealed it sold 21 car dealerships.
Profit before tax for the year ended March 31, 2024 came in at £16.4m, down from £42.9m the year before.
Revenue was broadly similar at £3.6bn, down from £3.7bn in 2023.
Despite the falls, Marshall Motor Group still declared a £25m dividend to its shareholders.
Marshall operates 141 car dealerships and is owned by Constellation Automotive Group, the giant behind BCA, WeBuyAnyCar and used car dealer Cinch.
It snapped the car dealer group from the Stock Market in 2022 for £325m. Since the takeover, most of the senior team – including former CEO Daksh Gupta – have left the business.
The group is now led by Martin Casha, who joined the firm from Pendragon, in October 2023.
Directors said, in the accounts just filed at Companies House, that the fall in profit reflects ‘higher vehicle stocking costs and inflationary impacts’.
New vehicle sales for the car dealership group grew 0.2% to 58,824 units, but used car sales fell by 2.8% down to 75,347.
Total used car revenue accounted for £1.9bn of the group’s total income, while new car sales added £1.4bn. Aftersales added a further £306.8m, up 1.5% on the year before.
The drastic fall in used car prices in the final quarter of 2023 was also blamed for the group’s reduced profitability.
Directors said: ‘The used vehicle market had a price correction in the second half of the year, which impacted the remarketing sector as a whole.
‘The increased supply of used vehicles under five years, our core used market, with limited demand led to a 10.5% price reduction between October and December 2023.
‘Whilst vehicle prices are actively monitored and adjusted, alongside efficient inventory management, such a rapid decrease in price did result in low margins during the period and therefore impacted overall margin for the year compared to prior year.’
The highest paid director received remuneration of £1.5m during the year.
The Marshall accounts show the group sold 21 dealerships during the year too. This included 19 Toyota and Lexus franchises which were split between Steven Eagell (13), FRF (three) and Listers Group (three) which completed in June last year.
Bishops Stortford Volvo was sold to Lookers in November and Tunbridge Wells VW to JCB Medway in December. The year before they disposed of six dealerships.
Last year, Marshall Motor Group was the fifth most profitable dealer in our Car Dealer Top 100 list.
For comparison, in 2022, Marshall Motor Group made £92.5m pre-tax profit in a 15-month accounting period.
