Car dealer Inchcape PLC (LON:INCH) has unveiled a solid increase in revenues for the first four months of its current year and announced an expansion of its operations in Estonia.
In a trading update, the FTSE 250-listed group said its group revenue was £2.91bn in the four months to the end of April , up 17.9% at actual currency and 8.1% at constant currencies.
The firm added that distribution revenue were up by 30.0% at actual currency and 14.8% at constant currencies, while retail revenue rose by 9.8% at actual currency and 3.4% at constant currencies.
READ: Post-Brexit sterling weakness gives boost to 2016 profits for Inchcape
The company pointed out: “With over three quarters of profits denominated in currencies other than Sterling, our reported actual currency performance continues to benefit from Sterling's weakness and acts as an offset to the transactional currency headwind in Australia.”
Inchcape’s group chief executive Stefan Bomhard said: "Our performance in the first four months of 2017 is consistent with our expectation for growth across the majority of our markets.”
He added: “Our Emerging Markets Distribution operations performed robustly, and benefited from the strategic South American acquisition made at the end of 2016.”
Estonian automotive expansion
Separately, Inchcape also announced that it had agreed to acquire premium Estonian automotive Distribution operations, focused on BMW Group, from United Motors AS.
It said the acquisition will mean the group would become the exclusive distributor of BMW Group's vehicles in Estonia, marking the strategic expansion of the group's global partnership with BMW Group into an eighth market.
In early trading, Inchcape shares edged 0.9%, or 8p lower at 850p.