Strong car market boosts Greenhous
Car dealership chain Greenhous delivered a big jump in turnover and profits last year on the back of a strong car market.
The company, which is headquartered in Shrewsbury and which represents a number of marques across the region, grew turnover by 14.67 per cent to £888.5 million in 2015, newly-published accounts have revealed.
Pre-tax profit almost doubled, growing by 96 per cent to £4.8 million, the accounts for Greenhous Group (Holdings) show.
In a statement accompanying the accounts, chairman Keith Sayfritz said: "The UK's new car and commercial vehicle sales reached an all-time high in 2015, and both have shown continued growth so far this year.
"The group enjoyed a highly satisfactory trading year with all aspects of the business making the most of the buoyant market conditions."
"We also benefited from the investment in facilities that we have made over recent years and our investments in both property and personnel continued during 2015."
Sales volumes grew across the company's marques during the last year, with fleet sales 9.9 per cent higher, and retail sales 2.5 per cent ahead, to leave total growth at the 6.3 per cent mark.
The number of staff on its books also soared during the year, from 784 in 2014 to 949 in 2015.
Mr Sayfritz also said that the continuation of record low interest rates, and predicted growth in the UK economy meant there remains a good outlook for "stable trading conditions" in 2016 and 2017.
However he also warned that next month's EU referendum "provides some degree of uncertainty".
Last February Greenhous added the Ford marque to its portfolio, and the company said that would help to continue Greenhous' growth in the near future.
Company secretary Mike Pawson said: "The continued growth in vehicle sales is beginning to help fire our after sales and the expectation is that this will continue to create more opportunities for our parts and service operation, although with the aggressive nature of independent service outlets and motor factors we expect margins to come undder pressure.
"2015 saw the first full year of our STS refurbishing operation which proved a major success, with the increased profit from this part of our buiness and a record profit from our truck operations enabling us to show a significant improvement in the overall profits of the group and augurs well for 2016."
Greenhous has dealerships across Shropshire, Mid Wales and the West Midlands, with franchises including Vauxhall, VW Commercials, Nissan, Ford,Toyota, Volvo, Renault, Dacia, and DAF Trucks.
Vehicle sales represented £854 million of revenue, and servicing and repairs £33.8 million.
