13 August 2019

Marshall Motor Group has seen its first-half profit before tax drop 9% to £14.8 million in 2019 against £16.2m last year. However, excluding non-underlying items the drop improves to -5.3% for the first six months of 2019. Turnover for Marshall was up 0.9% to £1.16 billion.

The group outperformed the overall new and used car markets in terms of unit sales with like-for-like new retail new car sales down 0.4% and used car sales up 7.2%. Like-for-like aftersales revenue was up 1.8%.

Marshall half-year results were in-line with expectations despite a challenging market. Commenting on the results, Marshall’s chief executive, Daksh Gupta said: “Given continued weak consumer confidence as a result of ongoing political uncertainty over Brexit, ongoing cost headwinds for the retail sector and further potential new vehicle supply constraints in the lead up to the implementation of further emissions-related regulations on 1 September 2019, the board believes it is right to remain cautious regarding the outlook for the remainder of the year. Nevertheless, the board’s current outlook for the full year remains unchanged.”

Marshall Motor Group also highlighted the impact of the first time adoption of the new IFRS 16 accounting procedure which requires all leases to be recognised in the consolidated balance sheet. The half-year results claim the new accounting rules had around a 1-2% impact on the profit-before-tax figure.

Tags: Marshall Motor Group, Marshall Motor Holdings, MMH