Marshall Motor Holdings PLC (LON:MMH) posted weaker full-year results as the automotive retailer was hit by COVID-19 lockdowns.
Underlying pretax profitx fell 5.4% to £20.9mln. Revenue dipped 5.3% to £2.2bn, although like-for-like revenue dropped 13.5% to £1.9bn.
"The unprecedented political, economic and social impact of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 challenged governments, businesses and individuals across the world," said chief executive Daksh Gupta.
The company, which mainly sells and repairs new and used vehicles, was forced to close its physical retail business for prolonged periods of the year due to the pandemic.
"Whilst this clearly affected trading during those periods, we recognise and are grateful for, the fact that our sector was not as negatively impacted as others," said chairman Professor Richard Parry-Jones.
"The impact of COVID-19 continues to dominate the social and economic environment in 2021. Our experience of meeting these challenges during the year, coupled with the demonstrable resilience and flexibility of our business model, leads to our belief in being able to navigate through the headwinds that may arise in the short term," he added.
The company said it had received significant support from the UK government during the year and as a result has decided not to pay a final dividend for the year. It was forced to cancel a previously announced final dividend for 2019 and did not declare an interim dividend for 2020 as a result of COVID-19.
"The board continues to believe this was the right action to take to maximise the group's financial resilience in the face of an extremely unpredictable trading environment," said Parry-Jones.
The board and management have agreed to suspend executive management bonuses until dividend payments can be restored.