British car dealer Vertu Motors has warned of a potential £5.5 million ($7.4 million) hit to its annual profit due to severe disruptions caused by a cybersecurity incident at Jaguar Land Rover (JLR). The warning sent Vertu’s shares down 3.5 percent in early trading as investors reacted to the extended fallout from the attack that has shaken the UK auto industry.
The cyberattack, which occurred around late August 2025, forced Jaguar Land Rover to shut down IT systems across its major UK factories, including Solihull, Halewood, Castle Bromwich, and the Wolverhampton engine plant. The luxury automaker, owned by India’s Tata Motors, was forced into a near six-week production shutdown as engineers worked to isolate and restore compromised systems. The company began phased restarts in early October but continues to face operational hurdles as it rebuilds systems across its manufacturing and retail networks.
Vertu Motors, which operates 10 JLR dealerships in the UK, said it had lost £2 million in September alone, with the overall full-year impact depending on how quickly JLR restores normal operations. Vertu CEO Robert Forrester said the company is working with its insurance partners to assess a potential claim covering the impact of third-party system outages. Excluding the JLR disruption, Vertu expects annual adjusted pretax profit to remain in line with market expectations of around £27.2 million. For the six months ended August 31, Vertu reported an adjusted pretax profit of £20 million, nearly 10 percent lower than the same period last year.
Meanwhile, analysts estimate that Jaguar Land Rover’s total financial losses from the cyber incident could exceed £1.8 billion, with some reports suggesting the automaker lacked active cyber insurance at the time. Production stoppages across the UK reportedly cost the company around £50 million per week, according to Reuters. The disruption has also rippled through JLR’s vast supplier network, which supports tens of thousands of jobs across the UK and Europe. Some smaller suppliers have had to suspend operations or send staff home due to halted orders and cash flow constraints.
The UK government has stepped in with a £1.5 billion loan guarantee to help stabilize the automaker and its supply chain, highlighting JLR’s strategic role in the British economy. The company is also in talks with banks for a £2 billion emergency liquidity facility to manage ongoing costs. Although JLR has stated that no customer data was compromised, it confirmed that some internal systems and employee data were affected.
The cyberattack has drawn attention to JLR’s outsourced IT infrastructure, managed by Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), and raised concerns about vulnerabilities in automotive manufacturing systems. Experts have described the incident as one of the most disruptive cyberattacks ever faced by a UK manufacturer, occurring during the critical September registration period for new cars. The disruption to registration systems added another layer of financial pain for dealers and partners like Vertu.
Industry analysts say the episode underscores how digital interconnectedness in modern manufacturing can amplify the impact of a single cyber breach, halting production, logistics, and retail operations simultaneously. The JLR attack is expected to accelerate cyber resilience and insurance adoption across the automotive sector, as companies rethink security protocols for increasingly connected operations.
Rajani Baburajan
