Lookers, owner of Scotland’s 120-year-old car retailer Taggarts, has said the Brexit vote was a ‘bump in the road’ but car sales are as currently as strong as they were a year ago.
The Manchester-based FT-250 company has 15 of its 150 dealerships, 20 per cent of its business and 800 staff in Scotland.
Andy Bruce, the Glaswegian chief executive, said it looked as though the new registration month of September would see continuing momentum and the group had already booked 60per cent of its targeted sales.
He was unveiling a record first-half which saw a 16per cent year-on-year increase to £50million in pre-tax profit, prompting a 20per cent uplift in the interim dividend.
Mr Bruce said he now expected UK annual car sales to hit three million in due course though “there will be bumps in the road along the way and Brexit is one”.
The company said UK new car sales were up four per cent to 1.42 million in the six-month period to June 30.
Chairman Phil White said that despite the uncertainty around the EU referendum “it is fair to say that we have not noticed any significant difference in terms of customer behaviour so far, particularly in respect of orders for new and used cars”.
Lookers reported a 33per cent jump in revenues to £2.34 billion and flagged progress on acquiring an additional premium-branded car dealership business.
Taggarts, founded in 1896 and acquired by Lookers in 2003, is one of the best-known names in the Scottish motor trade, with key locations in Motherwell and Glasgow offering the franchises of Land Rover, Jaguar, Volvo, Peugeot, Nissan and Hyundai in state-of-the-art showroom facilities. The Lomond Audi business was also acquired in 2012 and now trades as Lookers Audi.
On Monday, Lookers announced plans to acquire Mercedes-Benz specialist Drayton Group for £55.4m in cash, while last week the group confirmed it was selling its car parts division for £120m.
Mr Bruce said: “The sale of the parts division is a great opportunity to shift our strategy and to focus on the higher growth division of the business.”
The shares, which closed last year at 185p, slipped 1.5p to 129.5p.
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