Like other leading players in the motor retail sector there is a lot going on at Lookers. Updates on organic performance were positive through the course of the year and it acquired Benfield in September. Benfield is very well known to management, should yield benefits from prior investment and presents synergy/efficiency potential for Lookers, not all of which is yet built into forecasts. Gearing may have temporarily increased to 1.3x but this is forecast to fall back to 0.9x this year, or possibly even 0.5x (vs 0.7x pre Benfield in FY14) in the event of upgrades and Battersea proceeds
