Customers are paying more for cars but the debt keeps piling higher, forcing drastic action
Aston Martin has often been in the news for the wrong reasons in recent years, and this time it’s for the secretive terms of a fresh £550 million loan that gives special rights to the new lenders not available to those already on the hook for the firm’s £1.5 billion debt pile.
How is Aston Martin not able to escape the debt doom loop? Its current cars are acknowledged to be some of the best it has ever produced, but the nature of such a cash-hungry business makes it difficult to escape the financial hamster wheel.
For as long as I’ve been reporting on Aston, its executives have been talking of the need to build to order and reduce excess stock at dealerships – but that’s easier said than done.
The temptation to keep the production line running is strong, given the benefits to both efficiency and cash generation. Sales to dealers (known as wholesales, the only type of sales that Aston reports) turn cars into cash quickly, thus oiling the money machine.
But if those cars hang around on forecourts, they require discounts and other incentives to shift, reducing average selling prices.
That problem becomes even more acute when Aston brings out frequent upgrades (vital in the luxury car business), because this further reduces the appeal of the old stock.
On Aston’s recent first-half earnings call, CEO Adrian Hallmark said its “disciplined approach” to balancing production and demand was working, citing a rise in retail sales (sales to customers) against wholesales, but he admitted the firm undershot its stock clear-out target by 70-80 cars, citing a sticky number of DBX SUVs at US dealers.
Aston has dialled back its sales ambitions from 6412 cars in 2022 and this year is likely to match 2025’s figure of 5448, said Hallmark. However, given the six-month figure stood at 2331, that applies a lot of pressure to sales executives in the second half of the year.
Aston leans heavily on specials like the Valhalla mid-engined supercar that typically are built to order for much higher prices. The car boosted the firm’s overall average selling price to £241,000 in the first half of the year, up 17%, while that for its ‘core’ models slipped 5% to £182,000, because of those sales incentives on old stock.
Despite customers paying more, Aston still lost money, piling the debt mountain yet higher.
