Car giant to shut all retail sites

Nottingham headquartered car retail giant Pendragon says it is temporarily closing all of its retail sites across the UK in line with Government advice.

Pendragon says it expects to temporarily furlough the majority of its colleagues within the UK motor and Car Store divisions during the period, with only certain key roles continuing for the time being.

The firm says it is currently assessing how long it can continue its repair and maintenance operations to support the UK’s essential services in the coming weeks and will “endeavour to maintain these services as long as possible”.

Pendragon says it remains too early to assess what the impact of COVID-19 may be on its full-year results and that financial guidance for the year ending 31 December 2020 is withdrawn until the Group has “greater certainty over the both the duration and extent of the current situation”.

Bill Berman, chief executive, said: “The health and safety of our people, customers and partners remains my absolute priority. We are taking measures to ensure we are in line with the Government requirements to temporarily suspend sales operations in our dealerships. It is necessary for us to take these critical steps to ensure the safety of our operations while serving our stakeholders and properly positioning the business to recover fully from this unprecedented situation.”