Lance Stroll’s Father Seeks Major Stake in Aston Martin
REUTERS—Canadian billionaire Lawrence Stroll, owner of Formula One team Racing Point, is preparing a bid for a major stake in Aston Martin, Autocar magazine reported, sending the luxury sports car maker’s battered shares up 17 percent on Thursday.
Aston Martin, the drive of choice for fictional British secret agent James Bond, has seen its shares slump since its flotation in October 2018 as sales have failed to meet expectations.
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Stroll, who is the father of Formula One driver Lance Stroll, is heading up a consortium looking to take a “major shareholding” in the British company, Autocar and the racefans.net website reported on Thursday.
Racefans.net said Racing Point could be rebranded as Aston Martin if Stroll succeeded in taking a controlling stake.
Aston Martin declined to comment and Racing Point said Stroll was unavailable for comment.
As the car industry consolidates through deals such as the PSA-FCA merger, Aston has said it does not need to belong to a bigger automotive group, pointing to the success of stand-alone rival Ferrari.
But the sale of a stake could help boost the company’s prospects as it seeks to turn around a poor performance, which pushed it to a $156 million loss in the first nine months of the year.
In August, Aston’s biggest investor, Strategic European Investment Group, acquired an additional 3-percent stake in the company.
A month later, Aston raised $150 million in debt at 12-percent interest, hiking its borrowing costs, to bolster its balance sheet for the launch of its DBX sports utility vehicle next year, with the option for another $100 million.
The company’s hopes rest on almost doubling sales with its first SUV, which enters production in 2020, particularly by attracting more female buyers to the brand.
Aston is also the title sponsor of the Honda-powered Red Bull F1 team.
Stroll, a collector of vintage Ferraris, has been involved in Formula One and motor racing for years and also owns Canada’s Mont Tremblant circuit in Quebec.