Zenith reports growth in underlying earnings, but challenges remain in the BEV used car market
Zenith, the UK’s largest independent truck-to-car vehicle leasing and fleet management company, today announced a trading update for the first half of the 2025 financial year, representing the six months to 30 September 2024.
- Adjusted EBITDA excluding residual value (RV) profits up 14.1% year-on-year (YOY).
- Total vehicles under management remained flat at 169k.
- Corporate-sponsored schemes grew 5.6%, driven by strong customer retention and new customer wins.
- Fleet remains balanced with battery electric vehicles (BEV) making up 45% (26,719 vehicles) of the corporate and consumer funded fleet[1] and 47% of the 5,843 vehicles in the order bank.
- In October, Richard Jones was appointed as Zenith’s new CEO[2], joining in Q1 2025.
[1] Excluding managed fleet and Commercial division vehicles.
[2] Subject to FCA approval
“We delivered good progress in the first half of FY25, and the strengthening of our underlying business enabled us to achieve 14.1% growth in adjusted EBITDA, excluding RV profits. This progress included improving contract interest margins, extending the older BEV cohorts, new vehicle deliveries being set with lower RVs to reflect current market conditions, and rolling out our new technology.
“We continue to deliver on our long-term strategy, and while the economic environment remains challenging and weakened used car prices continue to impact our industry, there are tentative signs that used BEV and ICE vehicle pricing has stabilised recently.
“We were encouraged by the Government’s commitment to the electric vehicle transition in the Budget in October, providing long-term clarity on financial and other incentives for BEVs. Finally, thank you to all our customers, business partners and employees for their continued support.”
Tim Buchan, Zenith chief executive officer
Zenith grew adjusted EBITDA excluding residual value profits up 14.1% over the period, but lower RV profits continued to impact overall adjusted EBITDA, which declined by 31.7% to £23.7m.
The total fleet remained flat at 169k, the funded fleet was down 1.6%, with 5.6% growth in the Corporate-sponsored schemes, driven by consistently high levels of customer retention.
Positive progress continues on Project Volt, the group’s lease extension programme to address the decline in used electric vehicle prices, with nearly 1,500 BEVs formally extended since the inception of the programme.
Following several new customer wins, the total Commercial fleet has seen an increase of 10.2% YOY to 53,230 vehicles, driven by growth in the managed fleet. During Q1 FY25, we ceased operations in our three English workshops, transferring the work to our expanding Mobile Service Unit (MSU) fleet and third-party network.
