Pendragon chief executive Trevor Finn has been awarded a further 2.4 million shares in the business under the Company’s Long Term Incentive Plan.

The award, worth around £825,000 at a share price of £0.3421 at the time of the move, came in a vesting process which also saw chief operating officer Martin Casha and finance director Tim Holden also received 1.45 million and 1.15 million shares in a total shares bonus worth around £1.71 million.

A statement issued by the London Stock Exchange stated: “The Company was notified on the 21 March 2017 that the following executive directors have received Shares following the vesting of conditional share awards at nil cost on 20 March 2017. 

“The awards were made to executive directors on 20 March 2014, under the Company’s Long Term Incentive Plan (“LTIP”) and have vested by operation of the conditional award and vesting process.”

The statement revealed that Casha and Holden had sold 683,341 and 541,854 shares, respectively, to discharge tax liabilities arising on vesting.

The award of shares sees Finn’s shareholding in Pendragon rise to 1.44%, a total of 20,627,976 shares.

Casha holds a 0.67% share of the business with 9,559,780 shares, while Holden holds 0.15% with 2,131,331 shares.

In February Pendragon set out a plan to double its used car revenues in 2017 after new car turnover declined 1.4% in 2016 – despite a 1.9% overall rise in revenue to £4.54 billion.

The group saw a 5.6% rise in revenues earned from used car sales in the year ended December 31, 2016 (to £1.92 billion), selling 159,000 used vehicles through the year but has now targeted further growth after seeing its new car revenues fall from £2.22 to £2.19 billion in the same period.

Overall gross profit was up 1.9% to £559.6 million (2015: £548.9 million).

Group operating profit grew by 0.7% to £101.2 million (2015: £100.5 million) for the year, however, as gross margin held flat at 12.3% and operating margin dropped by 0.1ppts to 2.2% (2015: 2.3%).