The net profit of Rolf in 2020 jumped 10.2 times compared to 2019 and reached 8.934 billion rubles, follows from the company’s IFRS report. This is a record for the entire period of publication of IFRS since 2016, a representative of a car dealer told Vedomosti. EBITDA of “Rolf” grew over the year by 68% to 16.055 billion rubles, net debt decreased by 27% to 16.123 billion. At the same time, the company’s revenue grew by only 4% to 246.2 billion rubles, the report says.
“Rolf” is the largest car dealer in the Russian Federation at the end of 2020, according to the data of the industry portal “Autobusinessreview”. And this is the only Russian car dealer that publishes reports, although it is not a public company.
The company sold almost 80,000 new cars last year (minus 13% by 2019) For comparison, the entire Russian market of new passenger cars and light commercial vehicles in 2020 decreased by 9.1% to 1.6 million units, follows from data of the Association of European Businesses. Rolf also ranks first in used cars, selling 65,600 units (minus 4% yoy). The rest of the market (more than 50 dealer holdings, for which Avtobiznesrevu has data) sold over 450,000 used cars in total (also minus 4%).
In an unstable market environment, Rolf was helped by the used car sales business, explains Svetlana Vinogradova, the general director of the dealership holding, in the message to the report. “The company purposefully worked to diversify the sources of replenishment of used cars, made a bet on the development of buying cars directly from customers“ off the street ”, without selling them a new car.
In the second half of the year, despite the shortage of new cars on the market, we managed to increase the stock of used commercial vehicles, providing our customers with the widest possible choice, ”says the top manager. Due to this, according to Vinogradova, even in the most difficult period of the year, the company did not resort to staff cuts.
The shortage of new cars in Russia was formed at the end of summer 2020 as a result of deferred demand, which formed in April-May, when showrooms in most regions of the country were closed due to covid. Automobile plants were partially idle in the spring along with dealers, but for them the situation was complicated by a disruption in the supply of components from abroad, which forced them to sharply reduce the rate of production.
After a jump in sales of new cars in July (up to 142,000 units, plus 7% by July 2019, according to AEB statistics), dealers were left practically without cars in popular trim levels. By the fall, demand began to exceed supply in the secondary market, especially for not too old cars in good condition, which are usually sold in trade-in, dealers said. “The deficit still persists and it is likely that new cars will remain until the end of the year. We have used cars – because of the rise in prices and the shortage of new cars, those who previously considered buying a new one pay attention to used cars, ”a Rolf representative told Vedomosti.
The interlocutor of Vedomosti explains the reason for the 10-fold increase in profits also by the fact that, against the background of a shortage in the market for new cars, discounts to customers within the framework of special offers have decreased, and in some places have completely disappeared. But the used car business is still more profitable, he insists. Discounts on mass segment car models have been almost completely canceled, agrees a representative of the Russian Auto Dealers Association.
According to Avtostat, the average cost of a new passenger car in Russia in 2020 increased by 7% compared to 2019 and amounted to 1.68 million rubles.
VTB Capital analyst Vladimir Bespalov has no doubts that buying cars from the market helped Rolf raise the profitability of the business. But it is no longer worth counting on such a scenario in 2021: “Given the fact that a certain shortage of cars remains, the prices of used cars will approach new ones, the opportunity to increase profitability by buying cars from the market will decrease,” he explains.
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