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HR Owen continued its move away from non-luxury car brands by confirming that it is selling its four London area BMW dealerships.
Chief executive Nick Lancaster refused to give Motor Trader specific details of the move, or expand on the trading reasons behind it, but confirmed that a single company had expressed interest in taking over the businesses.
“I’ve made the point in the past that we are downsizing the group to concentrate on specialist sites,” he said of HR Owen’s decision to divest itself of showrooms taken on as recently as four years ago.
We are downsizing the group to concentrate on specialist sites
The company is moving to concentrate on high end exotic marques such as Bentley, Rolls Royce, Bugatti, Ferrari and Maserati, although it appears to be continuing with Alfa Romeo.
Despite BMW’s aspirational image, and the success of its Mini sub brand, it is understood the company has found it difficult to return profits from selling the German marque’s cars. Trading conditions have been particularly tough and high urban property costs could also have helped drive the sell-off plans.
In recent years HR Owen has jettisoned Mercedes, Smart and Land Rover from its portfolio.