Online car seller Cazoo falls into administration

The company has appointed administrators from Teneo, who will seek to sell off Cazoo’s remaining marketplace business.

Cazoo has a drop-off location for vehicles in Staffordshire.

The site at Swynnerton Road, Cold Meece, off the A34 is also used as a preparation hub for vehicles.

The firm also has a service centre in Birmingham.

Cazoo, which was founded in 2018 by serial entrepreneur Alex Chesterman, has cut 728 jobs since the start of March after launching dramatic cost-cutting efforts in an effort to stay afloat.

The insolvency experts said they will retain the firm’s 208 remaining staff for the time being during the administration process.

This includes 124 largely London-based employees linked to its marketplace business and 25 employees at its Manchester and Northampton customer collection centres, with administrators hopeful that many of these can be transferred as part of a successful sale.

It has also retained 59 employees, largely based at its head office and customers service centres in London and Southampton, who will be assisting with the wind-down process.

Matt Mawhinney, joint administrator at Teneo, said: “Following our appointment, we continue to progress discussions with a number of interested parties on the marketplace business and remaining customer collections centres.

“The marketplace model is performing ahead of expectations, with strong dealer sign up, and the administration appointment provides us with an opportunity to secure a sale of the business over the course of coming weeks.”

Cazoo launched its dramatic restructuring in March and has since sold its entire vehicle inventory and transitioned into a pure marketplace platform for people looking to buy and sell cars.

The process saw it sell a number of repair centre and customer collection centres to Constellation Group, the rival firm behind Cinch and WeBuyAnyCar.

It also sold its wholesale business and assets to fellow rival G3 earlier this week.

Teneo said the asset sales have generated additional value for creditors and “preserved a significant number of jobs”.

The company was founded in the UK but listed in New York in 2021 – in a move deemed to be a blow for London at the time – with a valuation of around £5 billion.

Cazoo Group, the US-listed parent company of Cazoo Ltd, has started a voluntary liquidation process.