Motor Trader met with Stoneacre’s leading executive, Shaun Foweather, at the group’s headquarters in Thorne, Doncaster.
It’s early June, and Motor Trader is looking to schedule an appointment to meet with Stoneacre’s executive leader, Shaun Foweather. We organized on the 26th, since it is clear that it will not be possible to have the 27th because Stoneacre signed an agreement to buy a dealership organization. It may have been just a small local acquisition, but it turned out to be Trenton Motor Group.
Trenton is ranked 156th among the top two hundred MT dealer groups with an annual turnover of £69. 5 million in the year to December 2022. The agreement added after-sales of Nissan, Dodge, RAM, KGM and Citroën in Grimsby and Nissan in Hull, as well as new and used after-sales service. Van Center and a standalone site for used cars.
Stoneacre carries out its activities discreetly but very effectively. It began its advertising adventure in 1994 with the president and founder, Richard Teatum. This year, it is preparing to celebrate its 30th anniversary on December 21.
Teatum and his spouse Mike Keen founded TK Motors when they were in their twenties. After selling this company to Evans Halshaw, Richard first retired. However, he returned to the automotive industry and joined through Shaun Foweather and them to start an automotive group.
The group’s first acquisition was a former Peugeot dealership in Scunthorpe, called Stoneacre. Teatum kept the call to avoid the expense of converting signage and that’s how Stoneacre Motor Group was created.
Under Foweather’s leadership, Stoneacre expanded its operations with Suzuki, Abarth, Fiat, Alfa Romeo and Citroën. Stoneacre has gone from strength to strength and is now the United Kingdom’s largest racing organisation for Mazda, MG, Suzuki and Volvo. Stoneacre has 47 business acquisitions, 65 branches, partnerships with 33 franchises serving 120 franchises, and a team of more than 3,000 employees. The company sells around 60,000 cars a year.
Performance Used
Stoneacre’s roots are in the used car business, but Foweather acknowledges that this picture has been a “rollercoaster” with a meteoric rise in values during the pandemic due to an acute shortage caused by a weak new car market. slope.
The drop in new car sales in successive years due to COVID-19, combined with the shortage of microchips, has led to peak demand for near-used cars, causing prices to fall and dragging the rest of the market down with it.
When the source stepped up and the new car market went “mainstream,” used car market prices plummeted. “Used cars are very important to us and we’ve had a rollercoaster ride with used cars over the last few years, mainly due to Covid driving. “This increased the costs of used cars, well above their actual costs. It was wonderful for the industry and everyone did well, and then last year the costs of used cars plummeted and went back to a more general situation, but it was nothing more than a regeneration of the price of used cars.
Foweather said the existing used car market would be affected by the ZEV mandate on new cars, with automakers expected to hit a 22% BEV target. “It’s complicated for brands right now. They have goals they want to achieve with electric vehicles, but from what we’re seeing, consumers are likely to prefer those vehicles. They have forced us to use electric car brands, which has forced us to impose them on consumers who don’t actually want them,” he stated.
For Foweather, the government’s preference to let electricity pass through until 2035 does not make sense. The deadline is too ambitious, the infrastructure is not up to par and the market is too busy.
“They (the government) could just lower the targets, be more realistic and accept that the car industry is big business in this country. I don’t understand why it is so urgent to have those electric cars until 2035.
“It makes no sense because when they communicate about 0 emissions they do not take into account the production of the batteries, their useful life. I do not understand why they defend something that is not true in favor of 0 emissions.
“It doesn’t seem like it’s completely planned, it’s not just about the infrastructure to get the testers in place. They don’t take into account the electric power [supply] aspect, because they will want power to qualify those cars unless generation is radically adjusted in the next five to ten years. »
Foweather suggests hybrids are the way to go. In Stoneacre’s experience promoting hybrids and natural electric vehicles, sales of hybrids are much higher because other people may care about diversity.
“Perhaps when we have the next generation of batteries and electric cars with a real-world range of 350 to 400 miles, diversity anxiety will be alleviated. Manufacturers are being forced to expand this technology, for which consumers They are not fully prepared yet. It would have given them more time and the transition would have been smoother. I sympathize with the manufacturers, because they are in the middle of everything and they give it back to us, but we have a selection because we can sell used cars.
Foweather reiterates the importance of hybrids as the market evolves over the next decade. “If the government could just help put more emphasis on hybrids, I think that would be the way forward for the industry, and brands would accept that and maybe get to 0 emissions by 2050, when we have the generation and the resources. “
For Foweather, education is key to enabling dealership staff to sell cars to consumers in the first position and the ups and downs of electric car operation. But he believes that there is a deficit of education. In March of this year, a study by Startline found that only 43% of used car dealers had not finished formal education to improve staff knowledge of electric cars and thus increase sales.
Foweather says, “Our workers want to perceive a lot of wisdom to pass on to consumers. Owning an electric vehicle isn’t just about the car, it’s a total set of charging modes, where and when to charge it. This wisdom is for our people. Here’s what consumers want to know to be more confident in owning an electric vehicle.
Agency and adaptability
Firm styling has been one of the big issues that has plagued dealerships in recent years. Some car brands such as Mercedes-Benz have made great efforts and brought strength to their networks. Others, such as Suzuki, say they have no plans for Agency, while brands such as Ford and JLR have revised their plans in the face of market challenges.
Foweather said: “We are subject to a non-authentic style of company with Volvo that we have adapted to very well and to some extent it works, but in others it does not. I think some brands are reluctant. That’s something else. “We have to adapt. There’s one wonderful thing about the United Kingdom auto industry: we adapt very well to anything that comes our way: we have.
“It’s a complex industry that we’ve had to adapt to things thrown at us by manufacturers, government and competition, like Cazoo, disruptors who think they can disrupt our business. “
Foweather has good reviews for Cazoo, the only online disruptor to go public in 2021, valued at $7bn (£5bn). At the time he expected to make $1 billion in revenue. His pitch to investors was that the UK and European markets were ripe for expansion, and that no broker organization had a market share of more than 5%. The company expanded in the UK and then Europe and spent millions of pounds before closing and selling its assets to move forward.
The story ended with the disconnection of the administrators and the sale of the assets. Cazoo was introduced as an administrator and talks with parties such as G3 Vehicle Auctions and MOTORS resulted in sales, with G3 getting the wholesale sale of Cazoo and MOTORS getting the Cazoo brand.
“I think we deserve to thank them, when Covid came and Cazoo joined, they had the best chance. If someone told Cazoo, I’ll tell you what you’re doing, when you launch your business, we’re going to stop all dealerships from opening and they’ll only be able to sell online like you. . . But you have the best model. It was the best typhoon for them and they still couldn’t do it.
“We adapted and have become perfect online sellers. Much, much greater than what Cazoo could have done because they didn’t have the infrastructure and the others because they didn’t employ other people in the auto industry. I guess they did us a favor. It woke us up a little bit about online sales,” he said.
Lessons learned
Stoneacre struck the right tone during the pandemic when its managers waived their salaries to show solidarity with many of its workers who were on furlough. The company underwent a transformation and moved most of its marketing from offline to online.
“The pandemic has been huge for us. It was a curveball. I think we thought we were indestructible because we were so well structured within our company, in terms of the flow of money and people, that we thought nothing could alter that. and then it happened the pandemic. It was something you might have never expected.
Stoneacre’s use of virtual teams to capitalize on leads and reduce reaction times has proven effective. The Group stayed in touch with its consumers despite confinement, deploying technologies such as CitNOW, Rapid Response, video and Teams.
“I think it has shown how adaptable the motor industry is in the UK. We treated him incredibly well. Without the government, we would all have been stuck and broke, but they came to the party and I have a hard time with other people giving them such a hard time,” Foweather continued.
“They were harassed by some other people who took out loans and didn’t pay them back, but the government kept our business doing what it did during the holidays. Because it’s a cash-intensive activity, we needed this help. I think we learned to work with prices and customers, and we came out of there, we came out with a better company.
The future of Stoneacre
Stoneacre has invested time and resources in progressing Stoneacre Academy, led through Claire Perkins, the group’s academy director. Individuals can gain qualifications equivalent to GCSEs and A-Levels. The academy trains around one hundred apprentices a year.
Foweather says: “We had a wonderful stopover at Ofsted and were the only worker provider academy to achieve notable effects in all five Ofsted categories and as a result of this Claire was invited to Parliament to speak about how academies and our manage the learning.
The Stoneacre Technical Training Centre offers a suite of gadgets that can be discovered in the newest workshops and vehicles. The Technical Apprenticeship Program is designed to expand the next generation of technicians to Stoneacre’s operations and the automotive industry.
A Customer Service Specialist program can lead to service, sales, portion positions and specialized roles in Stoneacre’s portion center and director. The Business Administrator program develops the next generation of business managers and accountants.
Had they chosen to leave school at age 16, the apprentices would not have earned any diplomas. That’s why, at the end of their apprenticeship, Stoneacre holds a graduation rite to reflect the importance of their education and what they’ve accomplished.
Foweather is positive about the future: “I don’t see any challenges. I see opportunities because every challenge opens up an opportunity and we will move towards that opportunity.
“I think the key thing we do as well, if not better, is how we treat our employees. They are the most important asset, that’s why we care about our employees, we offer them a suitable workplace, a smart salary plan and growth opportunities within the company, because we want to grow constantly.
“I don’t know what the future will look like, and we don’t care because I know we will react and adapt faster and more than to the maximum thanks to our core strengths. We will take each day as it comes, knowing that when we want to change, we will change. We will go wherever we want to go through our others so that we can all succeed.
Foweather is a symptom of what could be the running organization’s motto heading into its 30th anniversary celebrations in December: “Nothing bothers us. “
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