McLaren has no plans to go public

Tomorrow, Williams will become the first Formula 1 team to go public. However, its competitors do not seem eager to follow the same path, as Andy Myers, the CFO of McLaren, indicates that the Woking-based company currently has no plans of this kind.

It must be said that the shareholder structure of the two companies is quite different: until now, Frank Williams and Patrick Head have always been the majority shareholders of the team they founded in 1977 (even though they had already sold 10% to Christian Wolff in 2009).

The IPO is not a capital increase for the team but a means for Patrick Head to reduce his stake and thus convert his Williams shares into cash.

The situation is quite different at McLaren as the Bahraini fund Mumtalakat holds 50%, while Ron Dennis and Mansour Ojjeh share the remainder since they decided to buy back the 40% from Mercedes when the Stuttgart manufacturer took over Brawn GP.

Andy Myers indicates that McLaren’s strategy “is to remain a privately controlled company with a small number of very involved shareholders because we believe this aligns best with our business model.” It should also be noted that McLaren is not only experiencing success on the track but also from a financial perspective, as for the 2009 fiscal year, revenue (sponsors, television rights) amounted to 204 million euros, while its net profit (after taxes) was 59 million euros, more than 10 times the profit recorded over the same period by Sir Frank’s team.

With the participation of RacingBusiness.fr