10:12 am, November 3, 2015
PENDRAGON has announced a 15.2 per cent surge in used car sales profits over the past four months.
In an interim management statement, the UK’s largest automotive retailer, owner of the Evans Halshaw and Strastone chains, said the gross pre-tax profit figures were in part a result of ‘favourable underlying market conditions’.
Aftersales contributed the most to overall profitability and had increased by 3.8 per cent in the four months to the end of October, with gross new car sale profits up 5.3 per cent. Overall, underlying like-for-like profits before tax increased by 6.6 per cent.
The group said: ‘We continue to be encouraged by the results of the UK’s first automotive ‘click and collect’ service, ‘Move Me Closer’ and our ‘Sell Your Car’ initiative.
Pendragon’s chief executive, Trevor Finn, said: ‘We continue to go from strength to strength after another strong quarter across our key sectors of aftersales, used and new.
‘We continue to deliver on our winning strategy of offering choice, value, service and convenience to our customers and we are ideally positioned to gain from favourable underlying market conditions for aftersales, used and new. The performance of the group is in line with expectations for the full year, which were upgraded in August.”
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