Vertu has seen encouraging leads to the brand new automobile market and it continues to have a resilient aftersales efficiency, regardless of Motability and used automobile headwinds
The group has posted a market replace for the primary three months of its new monetary 12 months, the place it noticed new automobile retail volumes up 7% year-on-year and market share good points serving to offset more durable situations elsewhere.
Used automobile volumes fell 3.8% amid tight provide and weaker demand, however improved margins lifted gross revenue. Fleet and business gross sales rose 3%, and high-margin aftersales income grew 4.1%, pushed by an ageing automobile parc and ongoing service initiatives.
Motability volumes declined 23.2%, partly as a result of decrease availability from conventional producers, whereas the Group famous broader market shifts post-Covid.
Robert Forrester, Vertu chief govt, mentioned: “Because the starting of the monetary 12 months, a interval which incorporates the vital buying and selling month of March, the group has traded nicely in a difficult macro-economic atmosphere.
“New retail volumes are up materially with the group benefiting from market share good points and our excessive margin aftersales enterprise continues its out-performance.
“This encouraging begin to the 12 months is balanced by ongoing headwinds of a difficult shopper and enterprise atmosphere and the Authorities’s ZEV mandate selling accelerated electrical automobile adoption.”
Vertu’s share buyback programme of £12 million capability, introduced in February 2025, has continued all through the three month interval with £4.5m of the programme utilised to this point within the buy of seven.8m shares for cancellation, leaving £7.5m to deploy.
Because the group began its share buyback programme in FY18, 18.5% of the Group’s issued share capital has been repurchased.
Vertu continues to be acquisitive and mentioned it’s “nicely positioned with secure administration and a really robust stability sheet with low gearing to benefit from alternatives as they come up”.
