The cyber-attack that closed Jaguar Land Rover factories has pushed the company from profit into a quarterly loss of almost £500m, the carmaker has revealed.
JLR made pre-tax losses of £485m in the three months to 30 September, with production shut down throughout September due to the hack – a brutal turnaround from the £398m profit it recorded in the same period a year earlier, and ending 11 consecutive quarters of profit.
With factories only now returning to full output after a phased restart in October, the total financial impact of the hack on JLR is yet to be quantified.
The hack has been estimated to have cost the wider UK economy up to £1.9bn, and was blamed by the government for dragging down the quarterly GDP growth figures, announced earlier on Friday, to 0.1%.
JLR reported £196m of exceptional direct costs in addressing the hack, including hiring in global IT expertise as it restarted its systems.
The manufacturer confirmed that car production had returned to normal levels, with all plants “at or approaching capacity”, after it closed its plants in the UK and elsewhere immediately after the hack.
The carmaker said that the impact of Trump’s tariffs, which led briefly to a pause in exports to the US and are now set at 10% under the UK-US trade deal, had contributed to the unprecedented losses.
The winding down of the manufacture of older Jaguar models was another factor, JLR said. More than 150 prototypes of its new electric Jaguar had been completed, it added, with testing continuing.
The outgoing JLR chief executive, Adrian Mardell, said: “JLR has made strong progress in recovering its operations safely and at pace after the cyber incident. In our response we prioritised client, retailer and supplier systems and I am pleased to confirm that production of all our luxury brands has resumed.
“The speed of recovery is testament to the resilience and hard work of our colleagues. I am extremely grateful to all our people who have shown enormous commitment during this difficult time.”
Mardell, who will hand over to ex-Tata Motors chief financial officer, PB Balaji, said JLR was poised to deliver the outcome of “an extraordinary period of British design and engineering”, with the arrival of the new electric Range Rover and Jaguar models, whose launch has been delayed until at least 2026.
The JLR chief financial officer, Richard Molyneux, declined to confirm a launch date, adding: “We will launch it when it is perfectly right.”
He said the investigation into the cyber incident was still live, and the company was continuing to work closely with law enforcement agencies.
JLR had been able to process some sales and registrations manually in September, which is normally the car industry’s busiest month. Molyneux declined to put a single figure on the financial impact of the hack, adding: “Some of the volume we will get back, some we will not.”
But he said the company had “used the downtime wisely”, including accelerating development and testing work for electrification.
The wider supply chain was also severely affected. The business secretary, Peter Kyle, on Thursday rejected criticisms from some in the car industry that the government had not provided help to companies in JLR’s supply chain.
The government offered JLR a guarantee on a loan facility worth up to £1.5bn. However, the Guardian revealed that JLR has not drawn down any of the money.
Molyneux said JLR had so far drawn down £500m from a separate £2bn bank facility it had earlier agreed.
Kyle said the guarantee “gave the space for JLR to focus on resumption and not constantly just panic about money”, but added that it should be responsible for helping its suppliers. He added that “any company in the supply chain that is in extreme distress and is not being supported by JLR should contact my department”.
JLR has paid upfront for parts from 56 suppliers in an effort to prevent a cash crunch.
