Blogs

Glyn Hopkin Group recently announced its sale to become an employee ownership trust (EOT). The group, which has a £550m turnover, has 25 sites and employs more than 800 people, making it the largest EOT transaction in the franchised motor retail sector. When business owners are planning for a future exit, there are various options to consider. These include the ...

Electric vehicles (EVs) continue to grace our headlines, whether it’s a comment on the perceived lack of EV charging infrastructure, confirmation of increased road tax for EVs alongside the government-mandated ban on internal combustion engines and worries of EV-specific insurance cost increases. That’s just the tip of the iceberg as far as I can see – we’re still running head-first ...

Despite the absence of any blogs for the last three weeks, I’ve not actually been away.  The days have shoby getting the ICDP Omni-Channel Cookbook finally completed after some months on the ‘to do’ list (more details here), some interesting client meetings, a classic car rally with my son and several days of hard labour under a baking sun (yes ...

In our regular feature Professor Henry Blair, Senior Counsel at Motor Industry Legal Services (MILS), answers your questions. In this month’s edition he looks at the impact of the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act (DMCCA) on the motor sector   Q: What is the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act, and how important will it be? A: Sarah Cardell, ...

The used car market has seen 18 months of consecutive growth thanks to new cars returning to full delivery capacity and the increased supply of used vehicles as a result. However, recent figures from the SMMT show that sales of new cars to private buyers fell for the ninth month in a row in June, just as the new car ...

I had some time off last week in order to complete various bits of work around our house.  I won’t bore you here with all the challenges faced but I was reminded of discussion I had many years ago with Sir John Egan, the former Chief Executive of Jaguar Cars, who then went on to the same position at the ...

Last month dealer management systems (DMS) group CDK Global was hit in the US by a cyber-attack which results in it closing down its cloud based software for US dealers. Here Andy Thompson, Offensive Cybersecurity Research Evangelist at CyberArk offers dealer CEOs practical advice to ensure they keep safe and prevent themselves from falling victim to cyber crime in the ...

We’re all familiar with the concept of the connected car, mainly from the point of view of how it affects aftersales with the ability to provide over-the-air updates and to capture data from the car such as fault codes, wear levels and other information that would improve planning of aftersales needs. This in itself is not straightforward as the independent ...

The transition to net zero continues to grow, with over 1 million electric vehicles (EVs) on UK roads by the end of May. The latest SMMT figures show that while the pace of growth may be slowing, the number of BEVs registered year to date is nearly 10% up on 2023. The proliferation of BEVs will require automotive retailers to ...

The Motor Trader Top 200 Franchised Dealer Groups for 2024 features in the July August print edition of Motor Trader. It shows a sector experiencing huge interest in dealer groups from foreign investors, ongoing consolidation and a market building momentum after contraction in the pandemic. At the top of the listing there has been big change in ownership. Pendragon was ...