I found news about Automodular corporation
The top performing sector over the past six months has been automobiles and parts companies, with the sector average gaining around 80% during this period. A related company I have been following closely is Inchcape (Epic: INCH), which is a leading, independent international automotive distributer and retailer operating in 26 mature and emerging markets.
Inchcape was hit extremely hard during the global downturn and the shares lost around 95% of their value from May 2007 to January 2009. As credit became scarcer and harder to access, sales dried up and several auto manufacturers were bailed out by various governments.
However, the group updated the market on the 20th October, with a better than forecast third quarter performance and raised its earnings estimate going forwards.
The car dealer said its full year results would be significantly better than expected, with third quarter turnover rising 2.2% compared with the second quarter, indicating that the market may be bottoming out. Full year pre-tax profits have also been raised from £120 million to £140 million in 2009, with 2010 expected to remain relatively static.
The company has benefited significantly from the governments car scrappage incentive, which helped stem the falling demand, although the underlying demand for new cars remained weak.
The group also benefited from increased market share across its broad geographic portfolio, with momentum improving in Hong Kong and Australia, where the economies are improving at a faster rate. The UK, Hong Kong and Australia account for more than half the group’s total sales.
An extensive restructuring program has also improved the company’s cost base over the past nine months, with 2350 jobs having been cut and the closure of 31 sites is forecast to enable the group to be broadly debt free by the end of 2009, compared to net debt of £408 million the year before.
