Aston Martin Lagonda Global Holdings Plc will cut as much as a fifth of its roughly 3,000 workforce, as US President Donald Trump’s tariffs complicate a turnaround at the luxury-car maker.
The British company expects savings of around £40 million (around R864 million) from the reductions, with related costs of about £15 million (R324 million), it said on Wednesday.
The latest cuts are deeper than the previous round a year ago, when the carmaker was looking to ax 5% of staff.
The automaker known for its links to James Bond is seeking to end years of losses and slash its large debt pile.
But a turnaround effort under billionaire Lawrence Stroll — who rescued the company in 2020 — has been derailed by product delays, problems with quality, higher tariffs in the US, its largest market, as well as a slowdown in China.
Those challenges have contributed to three profit warnings in the past year, the most recent of which came on Friday. In response, Chief Executive Officer Adrian Hallmark is seeking to cut costs.
“I don’t want to blame Donald Trump for all of our woes, but he was certainly a big part of the problem that we faced last year,” Hallmark said in an interview, without quantifying the tariff hit.
“We set off to get to that break-even point in 2025 — we missed it by quite a margin.”
Aston Martin shares rose as much as 5% in early Wednesday trading in London before paring gains. The stock has lost nearly half its value in the past year.
The company slumped to a £493 million (R11 billion) loss last year and said it only expects free cash outflow to improve, not turn positive in 2026.
Generating positive free cash flow has been a key target for the company.
Revenue fell 21% last year to £1.26 billion (around R27 billion). Deliveries in 2026 will be similar to last year’s 5,448 units, the company said.
The automaker expects a better financial performance this year from more deliveries of the pricier Valhalla hybrid supercar that will help boost the average selling price of its models.
That dropped 15% to £209,000 (R4.5 million) in 2025.
Since Stroll arrived in 2020, the carmaker has required repeated capital raises to ease its debt burden. Aston Martin ended the year with net debt of £1.38 billion (around R30 billion) and £250 million (R5.4 billion) of cash.
A “clear path to sustainable positive cash is needed to remove the overhang of another possible equity raise,” said Bloomberg Intelligence analyst Michael Dean.
Raising more cash this year is “not the plan,” Chief Financial Officer Doug Lafferty said.
That’s helped by a £50 million (R1.1 billion) deal announced Friday to sell the Aston Martin naming rights beyond 2055 to the Formula One team separately controlled by Stroll, he said.
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