British Bentley Retailer HR Owen Starts Feeling the Crisis

With the recession still slashing sales and reducing workforce around the world, luxury cars retailers started feeling the pressure too as their 2008 profits recorded a massive drop. The best example comes from HR Owen, a British seller of Bentley, Ferrari and Maserati units, who reported a pretax profit drop to 1.4 million pounds ($2.1 million). According to Autonews, shares of the company fell 5.7 percent to 49.5 pence.

"The trading performance of the group mirrored the deterioration in the economy as the year progressed," HR Owen said in a statement on Wednesday. However, chairman John MacArthur says the company has the ability to get through the crisis thanks to a long-term plan established before the apogee of the economic recession. The group was "well-capitalised and in a strong position to weather the current economic conditions", he explained.

And the news isn't surprising at all. Bentley announced in December a sales decline by 30 percent, with sales falling from 10,000 to 7,000 units. "We're not putting on dealer cash or cash for retailing, but we're helping fund dealer stock levels," Stuart McCullough, Bentley's board member for worldwide sales and marketing, said at that time commenting on the effects of the recession.

The anti-recession fight continued in January with a new cost-reducing measure as Bentley announced it will halt production for around seven weeks to align production with the market demand. The temporary shut down lasts from March to May, with all Bentley employees to receive full salaries during this period.

Back in February, the automaker carried on with its race for survival by announcing a 220 employee job cut corroborated with a 10 percent salary reduction.