Positive Outlook in 2017

Pendragon Vehicle Management has experienced consistent growth in the last few years, growing our fleet in excess of 10% in both 2015 and 2016. Despite commentary highlighting there may be market headwinds to endure along with an economy being subject to several external factors that remain outside of our control, we prefer to focus on the opportunities that these market conditions present and aspire to continue and accelerate our level of growth in 2017. There is already more positivity going into 2017 over the future of Salary Sacrifice Car Schemes such as SimplyDriveIt, and to date we have not seen any changes either in appetite or support terms from vehicle manufacturers to the fleet and corporate sector. We expect the fleet and business sectors to continue to be active in vehicle replacements given the greater level of financial and operational efficiencies new vehicles deliver compared to vehicles over 4 years old. The whole automotive market is impacted by increases in vehicle taxation so if forecasts of falling car and LCV vehicle registrations in 2017 prove accurate, we do not expect the fleet and business sector to be heavily impacted as the average mileage driven by business drivers is considerably higher than private motorists. The economics clearly demonstrates newer vehicles remain more cost efficient on a whole life basis. Our outlook therefore remains bright, and we have invested heavily in IT to improve the corporate and personal customer user experience and continue to adapt our products and services so that they remain fit for purpose despite legislative changes enforced by the government. To deliver our aspirations for further growth we have already expanded our direct sales team; we are very much open for business and look forward to delivering as positively as we have for our customers in 2017 as we did in both 2015 and 2016.