It has been reported recently in The Independent that owners of the successful McLaren F1 team, McLaren Group have taken out a loan in the amount of £40m from HSBC for a number of projects.
One of them is the buyback of Daimler AG’s 40 percent stake in the McLaren Group (which includes the F1 team) – the money will “provide head room on its facilities to assist in the buyback of the remaining Daimler shares by the end of 2011″.
The Formula 1 team is McLaren Group’s biggest income provider, bringing in 64 percent of its £264.9m turnover in 2008. On track, Lewis and the team may be ahead of its automotive competitors Ferrari, sadly the same can’t be said about its road cars. Ferrari made almost €1.9bn in 2008 selling 6,587 cars, whereas McLaren were trailing with £91.4m in the same year.
Thus the reason for the loan, which the majority of will be used for the development of its factory in Woking in preparation of the McLaren MP4-12C super car. Priced at around £175,000 and utilizing Formula 1 carbon fibre technology, the automotive arm of the company plans to produce 1000 units in its first year.
Along with the MP4-12C, the company also plan to diversify its model range with the introduction of a high end seriesof production cars, which will help them achieve their 4000 vehicles a year target by the middle of the decade. This will involve big risks as the loan has been secured on the basis of McLaren’s intellectual property, cash in the bank and its property which is said to have a value of £193.8m.
McLaren Automotive is now offering a 48 percent stake in the business to private investors while the remainder is split between the Bahraini Mumtalakat sovereign wealth fund, executive chairman Ron Dennis and the Swiss TAG Group. The three also jointly own the McLaren Group.
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