McLaren still in talks to sell shares in F1 team

Finley Crebolder
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FIA bring in former McLaren technical chief Tim Goss.

According to reports, McLaren is currently in discussions to sell shares in its Formula 1 team to secure funds for the future.

The British company has been hugely damaged by the global pandemic and has faced considerable financial issues because of it.

Sky News reported in late June that they were considering selling a minority stake in their F1 team in an effort to raise funds.

Shortly afterwards, they took legal action to secure urgent funds by using historic cars as a deposit for a loan. Without it, facing insolvency as early as July 17th was a distinct possibility.

They received that loan of around £150million from the National Bank of Bahrain shortly afterwards, and CEO Zak Brown claimed that the financial problems had all been solved.

However, the company are still looking to secure more funding, and are planning to do so by going through with their plan to sell shares in the F1 team, Autocar has reported.

The site has stated that they were told by a McLaren insider that there are currently advanced discussions taking place “focused on selling a minority stake in the Racing division.”

The report goes on to say that the company’s board have given such talks the green light in the past week and that there are also discussions taking place regarding the sale of Applied, a company that applies McLaren’s racing expertise to everyday industries such as public transport.

“We are considering the option of additional investors in the Racing business,” a McLaren spokesperson told the publication when contacted.

On track, McLaren look set to enjoy their best season in a long time. Lando Norris’s podium at the season opener, as well as his qualifying performance, suggest that they could be as high as P3 in the pecking order.

Autocar suggests that such an improvement in form, as well as the upcoming budget cap, could raise the price of the shares in the team.

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