A week before last Christmas, Pendragon chief executive Trevor Finn retired after 30 years in the driving seat. Keen for an orderly succession, Finn agreed to stay on at the car dealer for three months — which is exactly how long his successor lasted.
Will the disruption in the boardroom send Pendragon spinning off the road?
These are lean times on Britain’s forecourts: higher car financing costs and confusion over future tax policy on petrol, diesel and hybrid fuel contributed to a 4.1% drop in new car registrations in July, the fifth straight monthly decline.
So Pendragon, which owns the Evans Halshaw and Stratstone brands, is focusing on used cars with Car Store — a strategy Mark Herbert, Finn’s successor, did not agree with. Car