Aston Martin losses balloon ahead of new model ramp up

By Yadarisa Shabong

(Reuters) -Aston Martin posted a bigger-than-expected first-quarter pretax loss on Wednesday as the British luxury carmaker made fewer cars and burned more cash than analysts anticipated, sending its shares 7% lower.

Aston Martin, which has launched several new cars over the past year including its next generation sports cars the DB12 and Vantage, stopped production of old models ahead of the ramp up in production of fresh models later this year.

"Our first-quarter performance reflects this expected period of transition," Chairman Lawrence Stroll said.

The shares fell as much as 14% to their lowest level since November 2022 and were last down 7% by 0837 GMT.

The second quarter's performance is expected to be broadly similar to the first but the group kept its 2024 forecast unchanged.

"This miss would raise questions, in our view," analysts at JP Morgan wrote in a note.

Aston Martin in March named Bentley boss Adrian Hallmark as its new CEO to replace Amedeo Felisa later this year.

"I don't expect there to be a significant deviation when Adrian comes, in fact I think we'll double down and execution will remain the absolute priority," finance chief Doug Lafferty told analysts.

"We know the priorities in the short term are get the product portfolio launched and build that demand, hit the free cash flow inflection point in the second half of this year and take that momentum into 2025," he added.

The company reported wider adjusted pretax losses of 111 million pounds ($138 million) for the three months ended March 31, compared with 57 million pounds a year earlier. Analysts, on average, were expecting a loss of 93 million pounds.

Total wholesale volumes came in below expectations and free cash outflow was also bigger than expected for the quarter.

Aston Martin is scheduled to start deliveries of its V12 flagship sports car that will be propelled by a new engine, in the fourth quarter. It had pushed back its first electric vehicle by a year to 2026.

($1 = 0.8017 pounds)

(Reporting by Yadarisa Shabong in Bengaluru; Editing by Sherry Jacob-Phillips and Elaine Hardcastle)