Motorpoint gears up for £1bn online sales target

A CAR dealer’s bold plans for £1 billion of online sales today showed how much buying a second-hand motor has changed since the days of thumbing through the classifieds.

Motorpoint, which has 14 UK showrooms specialising in the sale of nearly new vehicles, has substantially increased its investment in marketing, technology and home delivery so that it is now possible to buy one of its cars without any non-digital contact.

It revealed the £1 billion target alongside plans to double overall sales to £2 billion by 2024. Results for the pandemic-hit year to March 31 showed 69% or 47,000 of Motorpoint’s vehicle sales were generated online, including through its Auction4Cars division.

Profits halved to £9.7 million but CEO Mark Carpenter said there was huge potential from the firm’s transformation to an e-commerce led business.

Investors appear more cautious as

Motorpoint’s shares only crept a penny higher to 280p, despite Liberum analysts upping their price target to 435p. They said: “The targets are ambitious but the track record is strong and we have confidence in the management.”

Elsewhere, the pace of the wider London market was decidedly pedestrian as investors await the outcome of tonight’s latest meeting of US Federal Reserve policy-makers. Most commentators think the Fed will wait until September before signalling that it plans to start unwinding stimulus measures.

The FTSE 100 edged 13.98 points higher to 7,186.52, with the biggest moves being in the mining sector after China’s industrial production figures

for May came in below forecasts.

Glencore fell 7.35p to 313.65p and Anglo American dipped 64p to 2,935p after also being hit by a broker downgrade yesterday.

Peruvian gold miner Hochschild Mining was under more pressure in the FTSE 250 index, falling another 1.7p to 168.3p after socialist candidate Pedro Castillo claimed victory in the country’s presidential election — raising the prospect of higher mining taxes.

London’s second-tier index slipped 39.98 points to 22,591.34, with IT companies Kainos and Softcat among those under pressure after falls of 24p to 1,374p and 30p to 1,750p respectively.