Lookers trio incentivised with £1.5m 2023 shares bonus

Lookers will grant its top leadership trio £1.5 million in share options for the car retail group’s 2023 performance if the car retail PLC meets a series of three-year performance targets.

Chief executive Mark Raban, chief operating officer Duncan McPhee and chief financial officer Oliver Laird will receive the nil cost share options if the business meets “stretching Cumulative Underlying Earnings Per Share, Strategic, and Environmental performance targets” over a three financial year period to December 31, 2025.

The group revealed the terms of the Lookers Long-Term Incentive Plan in a statement issued by via the London Stock Exchange this morning (January 13).

Raban would receive 825,183 ordinary shares, valued at 50p, while McPhee and Laird would each receive 342,298 in the event that the group’s targets are met.

Details of the incentive plan come just two days after the AM100 PLC raised its 2022 full-year profit expectations to over £80 million and revealed plans to add further to recent new car franchise additions Lotus Cars and Ora.

The trading update marked a further step in the business’ turnaround since current AM Awards business leader of the year Raban was appointed CEO at the start of 2020.

An AM dealer profile feature published last year highlighted his role in navigating Lookers through a cost-cutting restructure which cut a total of 27 retail sites and significant headcount from the £4.1bn turnover car retail group.

The changes came at a time which saw the business tackle the impacts of COVID-19 as well as a historic fraud probe, a Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) investigation and its temporary de-listing from the London Stock Exchange due to the late submission of its accounts in 2019.

Raban said: “I’m extremely proud of what we have achieved over the past two years.”

Speaking this week Raban said the group’s 2022 success had been achieved “against a context of significant supply chain disruption and unprecedented inflationary cost pressure.”

Lookers is now set to grow with the help of new franchise partners.

After Q4’s announcements related to the opening of new dealerships with Great Wall Motors’ Ora electric vehicle (EV) brand (Wolverhampton and Braintree) and Lotus Cars (Belfast), Lookers announced today that further new car retail partnerships would result in dealership openings in the coming months.

MG Motor UK will be added at the group’s existing site in Worcester while another “leading global Chinese EV manufacturer” will also be added to existing locations in the North East, South Yorkshire and Northern Ireland on its entry into the UK market.

Among the new OEM brands expected to enter the UK in 2023 are BYD and NIO.