A UK car dealership has reported that strong demand from the ultra-wealthy for Aston Martins, Lamborghinis and Rolls-Royces in the pandemic has driven profits up more than seven-fold.
HR Owen, in West London, reported pre-tax profits of £13.7 million ($18.4m) for the year to June, compared with £1.9m in 2020.
The figure also outpaced returns before the coronavirus spread.
The dealership, which was founded in 1932 by former Royal Flying Corps officer Harold Owen, sold 1,150 cars for an increase of 8.7 per cent.
On average, based on overall vehicle revenue of £389m, it charged about £338,000 for each.
The network of 17 dealerships also sells Bentleys, Bugattis and Maseratis.
The dealer is also the UK retailer for Rimac’s coming electric “hypercar”, the Nevera, which it is claimed will accelerate from nought to 95kph in 1.85 seconds.
“The past year has been challenging. Despite this the group delivered an exceptional result,” HR Owen said.
Since 2016 the company has been wholly owned by Berjaya Group, a Malaysian conglomerate led by Cardiff City FC owner Vincent Tan.
It said it had benefited from the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme, although it cut its staff during the year by 39 to 409.
Car makers have struggled to keep up with demand during the pandemic and have generally been punished for it.
They have suffered profit drops or losses as large wage bills during shutdowns and high raw material costs have eaten into their margins.
But dealers have been able to capitalise on high demand.
The luxury car market has been no different, with wealthy buyers who do not want to join long waiting lists for new cars buying nearly new ones.
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Conflict, drought, famine
Estimates of the number of deaths caused by the famine range from 400,000 to 1 million, according to a document prepared for the UK House of Lords in 2024.
It has been claimed that the policies of the Ethiopian government, which took control after deposing Emperor Haile Selassie in a military-led revolution in 1974, contributed to the scale of the famine.
Dr Miriam Bradley, senior lecturer in humanitarian studies at the University of Manchester, has argued that, by the early 1980s, “several government policies combined to cause, rather than prevent, a famine which lasted from 1983 to 1985. Mengistu’s government imposed Stalinist-model agricultural policies involving forced collectivisation and villagisation [relocation of communities into planned villages].
The West became aware of the catastrophe through a series of BBC News reports by journalist Michael Buerk in October 1984 describing a “biblical famine” and containing graphic images of thousands of people, including children, facing starvation.
Band Aid
Bob Geldof, singer with the Irish rock group The Boomtown Rats, formed Band Aid in response to the horrific images shown in the news broadcasts.
With Midge Ure of the band Ultravox, he wrote the hit charity single Do They Know it’s Christmas in December 1984, featuring a string of high-profile musicians.
Following the single’s success, the idea to stage a rock concert evolved.
Live Aid was a series of simultaneous concerts that took place at Wembley Stadium in London, John F Kennedy Stadium in Philadelphia, the US, and at various other venues across the world.
The combined event was broadcast to an estimated worldwide audience of 1.5 billion.
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