Williams will be valued at 265 million euros

As agreed, Williams revealed the price range of its shares for its IPO on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange. This range is between 24 to 29 euros per share, valuing the company at 265 million euros.

But this initial public offering is not characterized by a capital increase to generate revenue for the team, which may seem like an important reason as many sponsors ended their contracts at the end of the 2010 season. Thus, it is exclusively a dilution of two of the current shareholders: Frank Williams and Patrick Head.

It is indeed the latter who agreed to sell more of his shares to allow Frank Williams to retain absolute majority within the team he created more than three decades ago.

The shareholder structure of the team will now be fundamentally different: Sir Frank will sell 6.4% to hold only 50.3% of the team. His long-time partner, Patrick Head, will experience the largest decrease as his stake will drop from 27% to just over 5%. He will thus provide nearly three-quarters of the shares put up for sale. On the other hand, Christian Wolff, who joined as an investor only 15 months ago, will maintain his stake at 10%.

This structure is explained by Patrick Head himself at grandprix.com: « We decided some time ago that going public would be the best way to secure the future of the team. Since we didn’t want or need to raise money, it meant that someone had to sell their shares. I agreed to do it, mainly because Frank wanted to stay in control and maintain the majority of the shares. Christian Wolff invested only 15 months ago and he is strongly committed to the future of the team. »

To promote itself, the team provided a comment from Bernie Ecclestone in the same statement announcing the price of its share: «I have known Frank Williams for over 40 years. He has always run a very efficient organization. He never wanted to be bought out by a car manufacturer or a large company. He has supported Formula 1 in many ways for most of his life, just like Patrick Head. We want more of Frank and Patrick. If I had the right to buy shares in this company, I would do so.»

Regarding the choice of the Frankfurt Entry Standard, it is due to the fact that this standard is much more permissive than the General Standard as it allows the continued use of the British GAAP system instead of IFRS. It also requires the team to disclose the duration and amount of its agreements with its sponsors. Strangely, the team isn’t particularly keen on that…

With the participation of RacingBusiness.fr