Supercar dealer group HR Owen has warned its shareholders that demand for luxury cars has dropped in recent weeks and it now expects its second half-year's trading to be at a loss.The London-based group, franchises of which include Bentley, Bugatti, Rolls-Royce, Ferrari, Aston Martin, Lamborghini and Maserati, said in a statement: "Demand conditions in the luxury car market have deteriorated in recent weeks."In addition, the supply of certain important new model cars, for which customer orders have been received, has been adversely affected and will impact the final quarter of 2011."Its board expects the company now to record a small loss Newsat the trading level for the second half of the year, but remains satisfied that the group will record a trading profit for the full year more in line with last year's performance. At half-year point in August, the group reported a 17.9% increase in revenue year-on-year to £93.1m and pre-tax profit growth of 8.5% to £1.7m."We continue to enjoy a strong balance sheet Stock market listed dealer group Caffyns has appointed Richard Wright, a former Ford and Jaguar executive, as a non-executive director on its board.In addition to that role, Wright will take over as chairman of Caffyns when current incum­bent Brian Birkenhead retires at the group's 2012 annual general meeting next July.Wright, a fellow of the Institute of the Motor industry, has previously held senior executive roles at carmakers, including director of Euro­pean operations at Jaguar Cars, UK sales director at Ford and president and managing director of Ford Belgium.He is currently non-executive chairman of packaging and coatings business API Group and Former Ford and Jaguar man joins Caffyns as non-'We continue to enjoy a strong balance sheet with positive cash balances'HR Owen statementHR Owen warns of trading loss Supercar dealer group hit by slowdown in sales of luxury cars

non-executive directortrading loss aheadNew car marketUsed car conferenceNewsNew carnewsAMRecruitmentIndexNews digestShowroomwith positive cash balances ahead of budget," it added in its latest statement.The announcement marks a tough beginning for Joe Doyle, its new chief executive, who has taken over the helm following the exit of Andy Duncan after a year in the post. Doyle joined this month after heading automotive service compa-nies HPI and Audatex.is on the advisory board of Warwick Business School at the University of Warwick. He is the former chairman of the board of National Savings and Investments.Gone are the days when the only way a dealership could get a marketing message over to the customer was via an advert in the local paper.Providing a list of cars for a customer to pore over was always such a limited means of communicating anyway. The information age has made it so much easier for the customer to 'shop' before they visit your dealerships to buy a car. They can easily go onto your website and search for a black, 09-plate Corsa, rather than trawling through a list on the off-chance you have one, while checking when they could book in for a service and what time your parts depart-ment opens in the morning.But the best advantage is the huge cost effi-ciencies this gives dealers on their marketing spend. With the launch of internet, intranet, email and SMS messaging you can now contact your customers when you want to, through the medium that suits them best, with a message that they could really be interested in. And if they want exact directions to your site, there's an app for that!Contact your clients every which wayTo find out ways in which MAPFRE ABRAXAS can help strengthen your customer relationships, call 08451 368430Nancy Rignall Head of MAPFRE ABRAXASAdvertisement feature