Gaurav Burman would take a stake in Team Lotus
The announcement has not yet been formalized by the team, but it appears that Indian businessman Gaurav Burman has acquired a minority stake of 10% in Team Lotus. This would be further evidence of the growing interest in F1 as the first Indian Grand Prix is set to take place next week.
Initially, the investment would be limited to ten million dollars. However, it is planned that its participation will be increased to 50% in the next two or three years, for a total investment of 50 million dollars. This information provided by the Indian newspaper The Economic Times clearly shows the difference in valuation between a backmarker team and a midfield team.
Indeed, two weeks ago, Sahara India Pariwar acquired 42.5% of Force India for $100 million, valuing the Silverstone team at $235 million, while Tony Fernandes’ team would only reach “just” $100 million. This is directly explained by the results on the track: Force India is fighting for sixth place, while Team Lotus has yet to score a single point in almost two seasons.
This suggests that the valuation of the other two new teams, Virgin and HRT (which experienced shareholder changes during the season), is still significantly lower because they were unable to benefit from the television revenues associated with the tenth place in the championship, achieved by the performances of Heikki Kovalainen and Jarno Trulli.
This also demonstrates the growing interest in this sport among the nation’s wealthy, as Gaurav Burman comes from the family that owns the Indian consumer goods giant Dabur India and founded the investment fund Elephant Capital Plc. Many local companies are thus announcing their interest and entry into F1 to benefit from maximum exposure just before the New Delhi event.
The only snag in this whole affair is that Tony Fernandes claims he has no knowledge of this stake acquisition, as reported by Adam Cooper: «”I have never heard of him. I have no idea what they are talking about. » This oddly mirrors the statements made by Vijay Mallya shortly before Sahara’s stake acquisition was made official… The future will tell us who is telling the truth.
With the participation of RacingBusiness.fr
