Pinewood bullish on outlook, rebrands ahead of global expansion

Pinewood Technologies has upgraded its earnings guidance as the pureplay automotive software firm prepares for major overseas expansion supported by a brand refresh as Pinewood.AI.

Sharing information about its vision for global growth in key markets, the business raised its guidance for underlying EBITDA in FY27 to £30 million from £27m.

In the UK, it is targeting a fifth top 20 dealership as a new customer by the end of 2025 following the recent securing of a major five-year contract with AM100 retailer Marshall Motor Group.

It added that the way its UK and Ireland sales team goes to market will change and that its commercial relationships with car manufacturers would be developed.

It also plans to methodically work through the Top 100 dealer groups in the UK to exploit all potential revenue routes and will work to ensure that all new and existing customers are aware of its full product suite.

“We have largely completed the rollout of our products to the UK sites of our strategic partner Lithia and earlier this week we were awarded a contract with Marshalls, further strengthening our position in the UK,”  said Pinewood CEO Bill Berman.

Pinewood said its global strategy would be focused on optimising performance in existing markets as well as establishing itself in the North American market - initially through Lithia stores, before building market share across the region.

US dealership giant Lithia Motors acquired the dealership groups owned by Pendragon, including Stratstone, Evans Halshaw, California and Car Store in February.

The deal also saw Lithia acquire a major shareholding in Pendragon-owned Pinewood, with the two firms establishing a US joint venture under which Lithia will rollout Pinewood software into its own systems as well as support taking the product to market to encourage adoption by dealership rivals.

Berman said the joint venture was key to the company’s success in growing its US operations where the core automotive DMS and CRM applications constitute a $3.4 billion market.

The Pinewood chief added that with high numbers of Lithia dealers in Michigan, Oregon, California and Texas, these had been selected as pilot locations in order to help achieve scale in the rollout.

“Our strategic partnership with Lithia provides access to the extremely lucrative North American market and we remain on course to begin piloting our system in a number of Lithia stores in the second half of 2025, before the full North American system rollout starts during 2026,” said Berman.

The business said strategic partnerships in the US were also being targeted through engaging with established or emerging car manufacturers.

Similar OEM integration is planned globally such as that with Porsche and VW/Audi as the entry point to build scale in the Japanese market where Pinewood’s rollout will start in 2025.

“We have been approached by a number of dealer groups and OEMs in Germany, Austria and Switzerland markets,” the business added.

It said that many dealerships in those countries are approaching the decision point on changing their systems as modern OEM technology stacks and digital processes were starting to overwhelm smaller vendors and legacy systems which was “creating a catalyst for change”.  Pinewood said it was on the tender shortlist with a number of groups in that market.

Discussing the change of its customer-facing brand identity as Pinewood.AI, Berman said he believed the “reinvigorated proposition” will enhance the steps Pinewood has already taken to strengthen its go-to-market bid.

The business said however that as it expands Pinewood’s suite of products, it may not be able to develop the required capabilities in-house and that it may therefore look to either buying in the technology to help  accelerate strategic progress or partnering on some products on a revenue sharing basis.

An updated version of the Pinewood system will also be launched in 2025 with new features developed from working closely with its dealership customers.