Ferrari leading sales charge at HR Owen

Strong sales of new cars helped push revenues higher at luxury car retailer HR Owen during 2011, but the firm suffered in the second-hand market.

HR Owen has fourteen sales franchises for brands including Aston Martin, Ferrari and Rolls-Royce.

Like-for-like new car sales increased 15%, to 506, with a further 42 new cars being sold by the Broughtons business which was acquired in August.

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The best sellers were Bentleys and Ferraris.

Joe Walden, HR Owen's Chairman said: "Our success in new cars, partly from converting customers from used to new cars, did however mean that used car trading fared less well."

He's not kidding, used car sales fell 14% on a like-for-like basis.

Total revenues for the year were 25% up on 2011 at £192.4m but pre-tax profits were down 10% at £1.8m versus £2m in the prior year.

Total earnings per share fell from 6.2p to just 2.4p, while the final dividend will be decreased from 2p to 0.7p.

Investors seemed reasonably content with the results, at 10:35 HR Owen shares had gained 0.8%. Since the start of this year the stock has fallen 8.3%.

BS