27 January 2019

• ALLEN FORD ON ACQUISITION LOOKOUT
• TRADING STANDARDS OPENS CAR RETAIL CONSULTATION
• INTERIM MD NAMED AT NISSAN GB
• SWANSWAY CROWNED VW RETAILER OF THE YEAR GROUP
• SUZUKI TOPS CSI SURVEY
• CDK DROPS FORTELLIS FEES
• WORLD NEWS – Audi on strike, Infiniti boss to Dyson
• STOCKWATCH – drops for BCA, Inchcape
• COMING UP – CV show, ARN Q1 briefing
• LAUNCH DIARY – Vauxhall Vivaro, updated Mondeo with hybrid
• MONEY MATTERS – credit card spending up
• OUR BLOG – How to spend 30 minutes wisely next week

Allen Ford on acquisition look-out

The South African owned Allen Ford retail group has said it is well placed for more acquisitions after a year in which it saw big growth from buying two smaller retailers.

The business is one of the UK’s biggest privately owned auto retail groups and is part of South African investment vehicle, Supergroup, which in 2017 added the Essex Auto Group and the Bestodeck Limited Group (Slough Motor Company and Swale Motors).

Its accounts for the year ended June 2018 showed a pre-tax profit boost of 18% and full year profits up to £9.5 million from £7.6m. Reporting a 54% rise in revenue from £396m to £610m which the directors said was ‘largely due’ to the takeovers, they added: “(We) are confident that the business is well positioned to take advantage of any expansion opportunities, either through organic growth or by way of acquisition and we look forward to future increases.”

Trading Standards opens car retail consultation

Retailers have three weeks to register their views on a new set of consumer law guidance being proposed for car dealers.

The Chartered Trading Standards Institute (CTSI) has opened a consultation and is inviting views on issues including practical steps on complying with fair trading laws for traders who market and sell cars, interpretation of the legal obligations dealers owe to consumers before, during and after any dealings or contracts made with them, guidance on the law as it applies to transparent and fair pricing, information requirements for advertising and selling online, options when disputes arise and how to respond.

The consultation closes on February 15.

To download the draft guidance on consumer law, click here

https://bit.ly/2Wkv7Zz

Interim MD named at Nissan GB

Andrew Sellars has taken over as interim managing director at Nissan GB. He is a former general manager at Gordon Lamb and held management level positions at Kia and Volvo before joining Nissan as sales director in July 2017. His LinkedIn page says he has taken up the role `at the request of Nissan Europe’.

Previous MD Alex Smith left at the end of last year to take over as UK head of VW Group. Nissan GB’s 2018 sales fell 32%.

Swansway crowned VW Retailer Group of the Year

Family-owned and run Swansway Motor Group has been crowned Volkswagen Retailer Group of the Year 2018 at the brand’s One Business Awards.

Its Wrexham centre came top from the 200-strong national network and its Crewe centre came fifth from metrics covering the entire business but with weighting given to customer service.

Swansway director David Smyth is one of the guests on the next Auto Retail Live Quarterly Briefing on 7 February.

Suzuki tops CSI survey

Suzuki has topped the car brands in the Institute of Customer Service’s latest UK Customer Satisfaction Index. With an improved Index score of 83, against 81.5 last year, Suzuki climbed 29 places to 15th overall across the 259 companies measured in a variety of sectors and to 1st place for any of the 24 vehicle manufacturers listed. The average Automotive CSI score was 78.9.

As part of the survey, Suzuki customers voted their dealers as the easiest and open people to deal with, were the highest trusted brand with a score of 8.6 out of a possible 10 and customers were most likely to remain loyal to the brand too with a score of 8.5 out of 10.

CDK drops Fortellis fees

CDK Global has scrapped access fees for application developers wanting to build industry-wide integration through its Fortellis open architecture platform. Although CDK Global claims there are already more than 120 organisations actively using the platform, the access fees are thought to have been a barrier to more rapid adoption of the technology.

This news follows soon after CDK launched  its own CDK International Partner Programme (separate to Fortellis, and subject to its own regulations) and Neil Packham, head of CDK global operations, told Auto Retail Agenda there is “a significant pipeline of partners across different sectors of the business”.

Packham added that the decision to remove access fees for Fortellis was “a clear and deliberate action by our new CEO to encourage innovation”.

The company has also launched Fortellis Marketplace as a one-stop shop for new apps and hosted an app developers day at the NADA Show in San Francisco. Auto Retail Agenda understands the day was so popular there are now plans to run similar events on a quarterly basis.

WORLD NEWS

Audi factory on strike

Unions at Audi’s Hungarian factory are on week’s strike over pay after rejecting an offer of a 20% wage increase for this year and next. The union wants a 40% hike to allow a decent standard of life for its members, who earn 28% less than Audi’s Slovakian workforce and 39% less than its Polish workers.

https://reut.rs/2U8Q5bK

Former Infiniti chief hoovers up new role at Dyson

The former head of Infiniti has been appointed to head up vacuum cleaner manufacturer Dyson’s EV business.  Roland Krueger, 53, was president of Infiniti from 2014 to earlier this month and before that he worked at BMW in Germany. He will begin at Dyson in April as the company heads towards its planned electric car launch in 2021.  Dyson has recruited senior engineering and commercial executives from Aston Martin, the Mercedes F1 team and Jaguar Land Rover.

https://bit.ly/2sKUztr

STOCKWATCH

Closing prices at 25 January and weekly movement

BCA 195.0p (-11.0p)

Cambria 59.5p (+2.0p)

Caffyns 380.0p (+5.0p)

Inchcape 580.5p (-15.5p)

Lookers 105.0p (+2.4p)

Marshall Motor Holdings 160.5p (+5.5p)

Motorpoint 199.0p (-5.3p)

Pendragon 24.9p (+2.7p)

Vertu 40.4p (+0.6p)

COMING UP

February 6: Omnichannel Futures Conference 2019 (eCommerce, UX design, social media, customer loyalty etc). (London).  https://bit.ly/2N4x3U4

February 7: Auto Retail Live Q1 Briefing. Register here.

April 30 – May 2: Commercial Vehicle Show, NEC. www.cvshow.com.

LAUNCH DIARY

30th anniversary Limited Edition Land Rover Discovery. From £59,995.

February: Vauxhall Vivaro LCV, two chassis lengths, three body styles and three trims. From £21,240 excluding VAT.

March: Updated Ford Mondeo including hybrid version. Prices TBC.

MONEY MATTERS

Credit cards the preferred way to spend

Consumers spent £11 billion with credit cards in December, a year-on-year rise of 9%, but repayments are increasing so almost half are not accruing interest charges. The outstanding level of credit card borrowing grew by 5% in the twelve months to December and personal borrowing through loans and overdrafts by 3%.

Eric Leenders, managing director, Personal Finance at UK Finance said: “Growth in credit card spending continues to be largely offset by increased cardholder repayments, with almost half of cards not bearing any interest at all. This reflects the growing trend of consumers using credit cards as a preferred payment method rather than as a means of borrowing, in order to take advantage of additional protections and value-added benefits.”

https://bit.ly/2Dx9cae

OUR BLOG

How to spend 30 minutes wisely next week

Next Thursday we run the latest of our quarterly live briefings and I would recommend any dealer, franchised or independent, to register and listen to our panel of speakers.

I have joined them all since joining the Auto Retail Network editorial team a year or so ago and without fail have found them informative and I know from feedback that other dealers value them if only because of the reassurance from hearing that others in the trade are doing much the same as they are!

This time around we have David Smyth, director of the family-run Swansway Motor Group representing the retail side, Daniel Gregorious, head of sales at MG Motor UK and Catherine Faiers, operations director at Auto Trader. Three people who daily work at the coal face of our industry, whose businesses have been and are doing well in a difficult climate and who between them have a lot of relevant experience they are happy to share.

The briefing aims to share best practice and this time we are looking at a quick recap of 2018 as a whole and Q4 before turning to this year generally; are there any legacy issues rumbling on from WLTP, what are the stimuli buyers are responding to and for MG, 2018 was a record year so how will that be continued in 2019?

Narrowing the focus, our panel will be asked for their predictions for this first quarter, how will retailers hit targets and are those fair and realistic, what are internet searches looking for and, with the dreaded B-word very much at the forefront, has the economic situation put the brakes on sales. I recently heard the chilling but probably accurate phrase that buyers in pretty much all markets are currently in `suspended animation’ until we know the outcome.

Building on that take on the situation, our speakers will then be asked to discuss what they have been doing and can do about it. David will be put on the spot with the rather direct question ` What tips to you have for maximising orders for the plate-change month?’ and Daniel will be responding to ` How can you overcome the notion of ‘I’ll wait until after Brexit’ ‘ and Catherine asked for her suggestions on how dealers can improve trade-in handling.

In a piece of interaction, viewers will be asked to complete a simple online survey with the question `Compared to last year, in this first quarter will you sell; (a) more cars, (b) the same number of cars, (c) fewer cars?’ and our presenter, Al Clarke, he of SMMT fame, will give the results before the close of the programme.

Register with us and you can watch it on your PC or mobile. It starts at 9am on Thursday February 7 and runs for 30 minutes.

John Swift

Editor

Auto Retail Agenda

Tags: Allen Ford, Auto Protect, CDK, Infiiti, Nissan, Suzuki, Swansway, Trading Standards