McLaren takes out a loan of 50 million pounds sterling

At the time, the fresh capital aimed to contribute to the buyout of the 40% stake that Mercedes held in the team. This left the Stuttgart manufacturer with still 16% of the capital of the company led by Ron Dennis.

Part of the new loan taken out with HSBC will therefore be used to definitively remove the star constructor from the capital of its competitor in the supercar market since the launch of the MP4-12C. The second part of this new influx of money will contribute to the new factory, which will be allocated to production vehicles. But most importantly, it will allow more money to be funneled into the racing team to try to close the gap with Red Bull, while the team has prided itself in the past on not needing to take out any loan over a million euros since 2003. This could be a sign that sponsor revenues may be declining compared to previous years, while expenses are now regulated by the RRA.

It is interesting to note that McLaren has chosen to take out this new loan with HSBC rather than its new sponsor, Santander. Indeed, like most companies, the Woking group has established long-term banking relationships and did not intend to disrupt everything to partner with a new bank. We can therefore observe that commercial and sponsorship relations are still clearly separated between the two entities, even though the Spanish bank had previously made headlines when it insured Fernando Alonso’s thumbs for 10 million euros.

As last year, the new loan was secured against the group’s intellectual property, its available bank cash, and its land and buildings, which had a book value of 193.8 million pounds sterling at the end of 2008.

With the participation of RacingBusiness.fr