Car manufacturer’s shares plunge after revealing £79m losses
Aston Martin’s shares have plummeted after it revealed it lost £79m in the first half of the year after it missed its sales targets.
It has laid out its poor financial performance a week after publishing revised forecasts for the rest of the year, when it significantly reduced the number of vehicles it now expects to sell in 2019.
Its share price decline, which was already critical since its float last October, accelerated and fell 45% in a week, having previously fallen 45% from its IPO price. The fall continued this morning, dropping a further 15% in early trading.
Last night’s closing share price of 568p values the Gaydon-based manufacturer at £1.3bn – £3bn lower than when it went public last autumn. The car maker floated at £19 a share last October but the company has lost almost 80% of its stock market value since flotation.
The latest price drop today takes its shares below the £5 mark at 491.8p.
Aston Martin Lagonda’s chief executive Dr Andy Palmer sought to be upbeat about the company’s prospects and said “the strength of our brand underpins our confidence in the long-term opportunities ahead”.
He added: “Both our retail and wholesale volumes have increased year-on-year. However, we are disappointed that our projections for wholesales have fallen short of our original targets impacted by weakness in two of our key markets as well as continued macro-economic uncertainty.”
Demand for its Vantage and DBS Superleggera models, and “sharply increased sales” in the US and China, supported its sales performance, although revenue was down 4% to £407.1m.
