LONDON (ShareCast) - (Sharecast News) - Vertu Motors warned on Wednesday that it could take a £5.5m hit to full-year profits due to disruption from the Jaguar Land Rover cyber attack.
In results for the six months to the end of August, Vertu highlighted "significant" disruption to operations in its 10 JLR dealerships from 1 September due to the cyber attack.

It currently expects a one-off impact on adjusted pre-tax profit for FY26 of up to £5.5m depending on the timing of full restoration of JLR systems and normal trading.

Vertu also said that trading in September was impacted by £2m due to the JLR disruption. "There has been a progressive easing of the disruption in recent days," it noted.

The warning came as Vertu posted a dip in interim adjusted pre-tax profit to £20m from £22.1m in the same period a year earlier. Revenue rose to a record £2.51bn from £2.47bn, boosted by the acquisition of the Burrows group in October last year.

Vertu said group like-for-like sales of Battery Electric Vehicles (BEV) grew 82.4% compared to UK BEV retail sales growth of 55.2%. This represents "major" market share gains in the segment, it said, with affordability of BEV vehicles having improved markedly.

Chief executive Robert Forrester said: "The group has performed well despite continued upheaval in the new car market due to the Government's policy to electrify the UK car parc. We have delivered market share gains in every area as the group trades under the single Vertu brand for the first time. We were particularly pleased to see further growth in our BEV retail market share.

"Our high-margin aftersales and used car channels delivered another good performance.

"It was disappointing for the industry to face major disruption across the JLR network following a cyber-attack on the Manufacturer during the key plate-change month of September. I was in awe of the way that our teams reacted to the disruption on customers and to minimise the impact in our 10 JLR dealerships, with the full support of JLR which has responded admirably.

"Whilst the situation is fluid, it appears to be easing in recent days. We are currently working with our insurance brokers and insurers to assess a potential claim under our insurance policy, which extends to the impact of third-party systems outages."

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