7:49 am, June 6, 2023
Luxury car dealership firm Rybrook Group clocked up profits before tax of £19.2m, its latest accounts reveal.
Reporting on 14 months of trading for the recently formed group, directors said revenues for the period ended December 2022 at £986m.
Directors explained Rybrook Group was incorporated in August 2021 and acquired Rybrook Automotive Limited in October of that year and for its annual report just filed with Companies House, it took into account the extended trading period.
The dealer group – which employs 1,028 people – holds franchises for an impressive array of luxury brands including Bentley, BMW, Jaguar, Lamborghini, Land Rover, Lotus, Maserati, McLaren, Mini, BMW Motorrad, Pininfarina, Porsche, Rolls Royce and Volvo.
Comparing its performance on a like for like basis with the former Rybrook Automotive business, the group said its new car sales were down 9.9 per cent and used car sales down 6.6 per cent.
However, the fall in new car sales was largely in the ‘lower margin fleet’ business segment.
Comparing the annual financial performance on the same basis, profit was up from £12.7m in 2021 to £18.2m and turnover increased from £802m to £858m. In last year’s Car Dealer Top 100, Rybrook was the 48th most profitable dealer group in the UK.
Looking ahead, the group said that despite ‘economic factors’ including the cost of living crisis, inflationary pressures, higher interest rates and the war in Ukraine, the directors ‘remain optimistic about future prospects’.
As a result, in April 2023, the group declared and paid a dividend of £1.1m to shareholders. The highest paid director, meanwhile, received emoluments of £688k during the reported year.
The directors of Rybrook, including chairman Peter Whale, also run Orca Marine Leisure Group Limited, a distributor of Princess yachts. Rybrook charged Orca £1.1m for management services during the year.
Rybrook said it acquired Porsche Exeter in December 2022 for £15.1m which was sold as part of the Helston Garages deal. That sell off saw Vertu snap up the lion’s share of the Helston business, and Yeomans take a slice too, securing 12 sites.
During 2022, Rybrook said it opened a Maserati dealer at its ‘premium multi franchise’ site in Bristol, as well as two more BMW Motorrad bike dealers in Shrewsbury and Warwick.
The group also invested in new Bentley and Porsche dealerships in High Wycombe.
The Bentley site opened in January 2023 and the Porsche site will open in the fourth quarter of this year.
The firm added: ‘Both centres have been designed with sustainability at the forefront, encompassing solar panels, tree plantation and green living walls.’
And, looking ahead, Rybrook added: ‘Over the coming years a number of our manufacturer partners are expected to move to an agency (direct to consumer) sales model and the group is working closely with the manufacturers to understand the impact and prepare for the operational changes that this may bring.’
Last week, JLR confirmed to Car Dealer it will be moving to agency sales from the end of 2024.
The full results for 2022 can be found on the Companies House website.
