(Adds details about company comments, data leak and context...

(Adds details about company comments, data leak and context throughout)

Feb 16 (Reuters) - Australia's Eagers Automotive (APE) said on Friday a third party has claimed it has published on the internet data alleged to have been removed from the automotive retailer's servers.

The company said it was investigating the claim and was assessing the kind of data that was compromised and reaching out to the affected individuals.

It said it continued to monitor any further claims about the publication of the data.

The Brisbane based company did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for further comments on the kind of data claimed to have been leaked.

In

December , the company reported a cyber incident which caused an outage across Eagers' operations in Australia and New Zealand, impacting its ability to finalize transactions for several vehicles already sold and ready for delivery.

An investigation in

January

found that the outage involved a third party hacking into the company's servers to gain unauthorized access to parts of its information technology (IT) systems.

"The operational impact of the IT outages on the company initially experienced as a result of the incident have been largely mitigated across all regions and business divisions," the company said in a

statement

on Friday.

The company, which has a market cap of $2.4 billion, said it did not expect a 'material' financial impact from the event for fiscal 2024.