Sytner boosts profits

The prestige brand group, ranked two in the Motor Trader Top 200, snapped up the home counties-based business, which consisted of 16 outlets, for £10.4m in March 2006. Having off loaded the four Volvo dealerships that came as part of the deal, Sytner set about turning around the BMW, Mini and Rolls-Royce franchises in Sunningdale, the Redhill Honda business and the Jaguar and Land Rover sites that comprised the rest of the William Jacks portfolio.

“We showed them how to make money on every car they sell,” Sytner's group operations director, Geoffrey Page-Morris told Motor Trader. Paul Sperring, dealer principal at Guy Salmon Land Rover Maidstone, one of 12 Sytner franchises representing the 4x4 brand, said the improvement under new ownership had been dramatic. He said the site's profits in the first 12 months trading under Sytner rocketed to £350,000, compared to £48,000 under the previous ownership.

“Sytner gave us the autonomy to get on with the job. There is now a fantastic level of staff satisfaction,” said Sperring. He claimed the main change in establishing stability in the business was that decisions could now be taken on site rather that handed down from head office. In its last published results before Sytner bought the group, William Jacks posted a pre-tax loss of £825,000 for the interim period to 31 July 2005.