IQ Magazine Issue 19

iQ profile
difference to where we are today - customers don’t
buy cars anymore, they lease them,” he explains.
“81% of the customers that we sell new cars to are
on some form of PCP, which is an unbelievable
number. This modern way of buying cars means we
as an industry are protected a lot more when it comes
to consumer confidence.”
When asked about the potential effects on tarifffree
trade, Mr Gupta adopted a cautiously positive
attitude, saying that Europe has too much to lose from
imposing levies: “If you take the UK, a record 2.65
million cars were sold in this country last year and
there will probably be a similar sort of number this
year. Interestingly, a third of those vehicles, including
the number one top-selling car, the Ford Fiesta, are
manufactured in Germany,” he says. “Who knows
where Brexit will go, but do we really think that the
Europeans, or in particular Germany, who are clearly
very dominant within the EU, are not going to want
to make sure that they’ve got keen deals with the UK,
and vice versa, for what it’s worth?”
He also highlighted the Government’s obvious desire
to protect the industry, as shown by its recent dealings
with Japanese automotive giant, Nissan. However, he
stopped short of making any solid predictions, saying,
“The automotive industry collectively employs about
800,000 people and is one of the biggest industries in
the UK, so I can’t see why the EU and the UK would
have a fall out on that. But equally, there is a lot of
concern as to what that might look like, and to say
there isn’t a risk would be naive or stupid.”
Overall, apart from obvious worries about how
currency exchange movements will affect pricing, Mr
Gupta’s view is to
keep cam and carry
on. “I don’t think
we’ve seen Brexit
yet, it’s still too
early. I can’t control
politicians, I can’t
control currency
fluctuations, all I can
do is make sure we
treat our customers
really well, treat our
people really well and do the best job that we can. It
will be what it will be, but I think we’ll be in a good
place as an organisation, and that’s all we’ve got to
focus on.”
Looking to the Future
With the New Year around the corner, we were
eager to find out what 2017 holds for Marshall. “As
a company, we’re in a really good position: we’ve got
a great business, great brands, a great geographical
footprint and one of the highest brand coverages of
any group in the UK,” Mr Gupta explains. “Likewise,
if you think about the original core Marshall
businesses operating in some fantastically affluent
markets like Cambridgeshire, we’re in a good place
and I think we’re ambitious, which you can see from
our growth in the last 9 years,” he adds.
And, if the going gets tough, Mr Gupta is confident
that Marshall can continue to evolve to make the best
out of any situation. “If it does get tougher, I think
we’ll see more opportunities come to the marketplace
in respect to further acquisition opportunities, and
we’re very well placed to take advantage of that,”
he says, adding one last piece of advice: “However,
one of the things I always say when it comes to
acquisitions is that they should always make strategic
sense for the business and financial sense for the
shareholders.”
More information
Marshall Motor Group, The Airport
Newmarket Road, Cambridge, CB5 8RY
Tel: 01223 377000. www.marshall.co.uk
issue 19 | page 25