11:41 am, March 4, 2025
Inchcape was operating at a hefty pre-tax loss before offloading its UK car dealers to Group 1 Automotive last year, new documents have revealed.
The firm has today (Mar 4) published its annual accounts for the 12 months ending December 31, which show that the outfit made a healthy pre-tax profit of £414m throughout 2024 as a whole.
However, buried deep in the accounts are the figures up until July 31, when the £346m Group 1 deal was finalised after months of negotiations.
Numbers published on page 29 of 34 show that in the first seven months of the year, Inchcape made a loss-before-tax of £3m.
The figure represents a complete collapse compared to the same period in 2023, when the group made a pre-tax profit of £35m.
Meanwhile, the group’s revenue tumbled from £2.06bn to £1.19bn prior to the sale to Group 1 Automotive.
The accounts say that Inchcape profited to the tune of £150m by disposing of the operations, some of which have since been axed after the US takeover.
Overall, the deal resulted in a ‘net cash inflow’ of £372m for Inchcape.
Elsewhere, despite the pre-tax profit of more than £400m, Inchcape saw its revenues and margins fall in the whole year of 2024.
Revenue dipped by 1% to £9.26bn while adjusted operating margin fell from 6.6% in 2023 to 6.3% in 2024.
Reacting to the results, Inchcape CEO Duncan Tait said: ‘Inchcape delivered continued strategic, operational and financial progress in FY 2024, reflecting our diversified and scaled global market leadership position, our long-standing and valuable OEM relationships and our differentiated technology capabilities.’
