Car dealer Pendragon lifted its full-year profit guidance on Friday following a strong performance in June.
“A strong close to June, combined with continued momentum in the used car market throughout July, with industry wide supply constraints leading to exceptional gross profits per unit together with good levels of demand driving further outperformance against the board’s expectations,” it said.
Pendragon – which owns the Stratstone and Evans Halshaw brands – said it was able to maximise its used car performance in July by maintaining good levels of used car stock availability in a constrained market. As a result, it now expects underlying pre-tax profit for the year to 31 December 2021 to be between £55m and £60m, up from guidance of between £45m and £50m set in June.
As at 30 June, Pendragon had a net cash balance of £9.5m, versus net debt of £46m in the same period a year ago.
“As outlined in the group’s previous update on 30 June, there continues to be uncertainty resulting from potential further disruption from Covid-19, the timing of an expected realignment of used vehicle margins and supply constraints in both new and used vehicles,” it said.
“As a result, there remains a range of possible outcomes for the full year.”
