In a regulatory statement, Lookers said: ‘The company confirms that it proposes to appoint BDO as its new auditor, subject to shareholder approval at the forthcoming general meeting on 28 December 2020.’

This year has been a turbulent one for Lookers, which first indicated it had uncovered accounting problems in March. It announced it was postponing the release of its results for the financial year ended 31 December 2019 after uncovering potentially fraudulent transactions in one of its operating divisions.

Grant Thornton was brought in to conduct an investigation, which initially identified £19m of non-cash adjustments to previous years’ reporting.

In June, Deloitte announced its intention to resign as auditor following the publication of the 2019 results.

In the event, publication was delayed several times, and the 2019 results were only finalised in November.

These showed a total of £25.5m of non-cash adjustments are necessary to correct misstatements in profit before tax figures.The adjustments reduce profit before tax by £10.9m in 2019 and £7.2m in 2018, with the balance cumulatively decreasing by £7.4m in 2017 and earlier.

Lookers also confirmed that the investigations identified a cash expenses fraud which led to a loss of £327,000 in a single division and which accumulated over several years.

The company said it intends to publish its unaudited 2020 interim results as soon as possible. However, it is unlikely that these will be finalised before the end of this calendar year.

According to its 2018 annual report, Deloitte has been Lookers’ external auditor since the firm’s appointment for the year ending 31 December 2006. A formal re-tendering process was last undertaken in the financial year ending 31 December 2016.

Deloitte was paid £680,000 in audit fees for the company and its subsidiaries in 2018, plus £20,000 in fees for non-audit services. This compared with £357,000 in audit fees for the previous year.