00:05Well, despite the glamorous image, Aston Martin has been battling really high debt and low sales
00:11for some time now. I asked CEO Adrian Hallmark how they're planning to turn the iconic brand around.
00:18I think, first of all, if you look at what we've seen in the last couple of years since I
00:22joined
00:23the company, we've been investing heavily since the new owners stepped in in the beginning of this
00:30decade. The market has been in boom time until 2023 and then it's definitely softened and gone
00:38from a demand-led to a supply-led market since 2023-24, just at the point where we'd invested
00:46billions in new products, more investment probably in five years than the previous 20 combined.
00:53Just at the time that the market started to taper. So in the last couple of years since I've joined,
00:58we've taken stock of all of the above. You've probably seen the significant changes that we've
01:03made to the cost structure of the company. We've brought the break even down significantly and the
01:08whole objective is to ensure that we can get to a point where we can generate cash instead of burning
01:14cash and generate positive profits instead of making losses. And we're at that inflection point right now.
01:21Let's talk about China because it doesn't seem like it's a guaranteed market for you anymore.
01:2721% loss in 2025. Have you just lost it in China? What's the plan there?
01:36I think if you look at the Chinese marketplace, it's gone through really difficult times over the past
01:43three years. If you look at luxury sales in general, I don't know if you've looked at the other brands
01:47as well, we're not the worst. I would go a different direction though. Because of our product portfolio,
01:57even when China was at its strongest in terms of luxury car sales, the share or our mix of sales
02:06in
02:06China was much lower of our total sales than many of the competition. Why is that the case? A couple
02:14of
02:14reasons. If you look at the luxury segment in China, about 60% of sales in luxury are SUVs and
02:22about 25% to
02:2430% are sedans. Clearly, we don't have a sedan. We were a front engine sports car company until the
02:32DBX.
02:33And as soon as we launched DBX in China, the Chinese market contracted significantly.
02:39So we weren't ever over dependent or reliant on the Chinese market contribution.
02:45By the time we came in with an SUV, the market had already started reducing. So our strategy in China
02:51right now is to support dealers. We've cleaned up all of the stock situation in China. And we're about
02:58to start relaunching the brand at the back end of this year and into 2027 with a very different approach,
03:05starting with the specials with Valhalla, which is sold really well in the Chinese market. And we're
03:11here today in London to launch both the Q store in Barclays Square, our flagship for Europe, but also
03:18the DBX GT, which is an elegant and even more refined and more powerful version of the DBX than we've
03:26ever had before. And this will be a key part of our growth strategy in China for the future.
03:31You are part owned by Geely. I wonder if Aston Martin would ever consider a full takeover by a Chinese
03:39automaker. Well, it's never been offered and we don't have to answer the question. It's speculation,
03:46so I wouldn't comment on that. We have our shareholders. We have a clear five-year plan.
03:51Geely are part of that five-year plan and they're good partners. We have a great relationship with them.
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