Aston Martin skids £13.5m into the red

ASTON Martin crashed into the red on another bleak day for the luxury car maker following its disastrous float on the stock market last year.

The James Bond car maker reported losses of £13.5m in the third quarter compared with a profit of £3.1m in the same period last year.

Revenues fell 11pc to £250.1m as it delivered 1,497 new cars – down 16pc on the 1,776 cars it sold in the July to September quarter in 2018.

Shares swung wildly after the announcement, before closing up 1.8pc, or 7.4p, at 424.9p.

The company has lost 78pc of its value since the shares listed on the stock market at 1900p each in October last year.

When questioned about Aston’s performance since the float, chief executive Andy Palmer said: ‘We are extremely disappointed with how it’s gone. We didn’t expect the market downturn, we didn’t expect the delay in Brexit, but we all know that DBX [its first luxury SUV] is the important next step.’

The DBX will be manufactured in Wales and will debut simultaneously in Beijing and Los Angeles later this month. Aston Martin will also be hoping to get a boost from the 25th James Bond film, No Time To Die, which will be released in April. Four Aston cars will feature, the most ever in a 007 movie. Palmer said each Bond film ‘ very, very clearly helps us in places like China and the US’.

Aston blamed its performance in the third quarter on a sharp drop in demand in the UK and europe. But it also fell out of favour in Asia, with sales down by more than a third.

The car industry worldwide has suffered a torrid year amid a sales slowdown in China, drivers moving away from diesel, and, in the UK, worries over Brexit.