Aston Martin calls for clear Brexit process

Aston Martin has called for politicians to clarify the Brexit process and Britain’s relationship with the EU to end confusion following last week’s vote to leave.

Announcing its annual results, the luxury carmaker said its expansion plans remained in place, including building a new factory in south Wales that will create up to 750 jobs to make the new DBX crossover model.

The 103-year-old company, whose cars have been driven by various incarnations of James Bond, now hand-builds its cars at a factory in Gaydon, Warwickshire, and employs about 1,900 people.

Aston Martin remained neutral over the EU referendum and did not advise its employees how to vote, unlike BMW, which told UK Rolls-Royce workers a vote to leave could affect trade and job numbers.

Mark Wilson, Aston Martin’s finance director, said that with a strong order book and most of its sales outside the EU, Aston Martin’s short-term prospects would not be damaged by the effect of the vote.

But with uncertainty over the timing of withdrawal and the UK’s future trading relationship with the EU, he called on politicians to clarify the situation.

Wilson said: “It doesn’t affect us in the short term as far as it might some others but over the long term there are 360 degrees of opinion out there. We will be circumspect but what we want is clarity and stability.

“There is a lot of confusion and we have EU people who want us to go and to press the button very quickly and most of the government who are slow-walking and saying: ‘We want to think about this.’ Until the political class says what they are going to do it’s hard to work out the direction of travel.”

He said Aston Martin could benefit from the market reaction to Brexit because most of the company’s sales were in dollars. About 80% of its sales are in the US, Asia and other markets outside Europe.

“For us, perversely, a weak pound is a good thing. There is a level of insulation in terms of that [currency] volatility. We have got over 2,000 orders in the bank which is substantially in excess of what we expected.”

The company sold 3,615 cars last year, down from 3,661 in 2014. Wilson said the fall was small and that the launch of its £155,000 DB11 model had created strong demand this year.

Aston Martin’s operating loss widened to £58.3m in 2015, from £18.4m the year before, as revenue rose 8.9% to £510.2m.

Wilson attributed the wider loss to £161m of investment spending, up 40%, and one-off charges of £30.2m as he wrote off the value of old products in his first year in charge of finances.