Formula 1 reporters are so used to being told nothing about numbers that they no longer even ask how much things cost, or who is being paid what. Some try to guess by looking at company returns but if accountants want to hide things, they can be hidden. The Bloomberg people, however, seem to be less jaded than the F1 scribes and so rang up and asked Aabar Chairman Khadem Abdulla Al- Qubaisi. The replied that Daimler and Aabar are paying $184.2m for 75.1% of the team. This values the team at $245m. There were five shareholders and while it is not clear yet who owned what there is little doubt that those involved have made sizeable sums of money. All five retain shareholdings. Al-Qubaisi said the stake in Brawn will be used to help promote Abu Dhabi.
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joeblogsf1 
$1 to $245 million in a year? That is way better than the lottery
Hahaha… Maybe I should go and work for a sovereign wealth fund. They are buying equity for advertising space… Abu Dhabi better get a huge amount of space on the car, otherwise this is very expensive, especially if you account for opportunity cost of investments that actually make money.
Must be nice to have an investor base who doesn’t really care.
not neccessarily; the new funds may go into the company diluting the existing shareholders; the 5 shareholders may not have sold any of their shares
I wonder how many weeks it will take for Ross Brawn to stop grinning like the Cheshire Cat? Good for him!
Wonder if Honda had any clauses in their deal with Brawn regarding their rights to the money if Ross sold the team on…
They must be feeling mighty silly otherwise. Spending all that cash to enable Brawn to win the title and then become a marketing vehicle for Mercedes!
What would be interesting to know is whether the new monies of $184.2m is in the form of new shares which would mean it goes directly into the newco and not as cash to previous s/holders. The old s/holders can only cash out on a subsequent sale to either Mercedes or other friendly party (I guess).
If above is correct then i can see why Brawn are “pleading cash poverty” !! But as you say this is all accounting.
That’s a fantastic result for the shareholders.
That said, i’m not seeing why MB paid that much (if those are indeed the numbers). Given the $1 purchase a year ago, any number, say $90-$100mil, would be a great result for the one year shareholding.
It seems the valuation is in keeping Ross Brawn happy & motivated going forward. If so, good for him, his track record over the years has earned it.
Joe, who are the five shareholders in Brawn?
M-B
Aabar
Ross Brawn?
Dave, there are seven: MB, Aabar, Ross Brawn, Nick Fry, Caroline McGrory, John Marsden and Nigel Kerr.
I wonder what the got for the 40% Mclaren stake, presumably with a much higher turnover it is worth a lot more than Brawn so its possible they walked away with money in the pocket to boot. In the grand scheme of things if budgets come down to $50mm then they could turn a huge profit even if they have Force India level of sponsorship?
All this is odd, in a way a have a feeling, that if Brawn GP needed more money to pay Button more, then it would have been there.
Deals like that take some time to complete, so surely was enough time to react to the developments in the driver negotiation.
One can only assume either Button really wanted to go to McLaren or he was pushed out.
Maybe Brawn did not consider him a real number 1 driver, which funnily might be the same reason why McLaren hired him… 😉
Or was he part of the buyout-deal that got Mercedes out of McLaren’s clutches….
Honestly, I hope one day Ross Brawn writes his autobiography or you as a historian write about the completely astonishing season of 2009, shedding a bit more light about these strange happenings. BTW, if you can do it now, you’re welcome…
Does this teach us the lesson to not dismiss the involvement of Gulf money? Sometimes it is a good thing to have an idea of the value of the sport. And getting a current WCC team for only $275 seems like a pretty good deal, though not so much so when you compare it to a potential-WCC winning team for $1.
In some ways I admire the open value method of NASCAR, as performance incentives would make for a very good piece of sympathy for the mighty. I recall the press writing quite a bit about David Coultard’s points bonus when he resigned with Red Bull. It seemed as though every race we were getting a pay tally. I think the current system CVC uses to give 50% to the teams is unfair, but if it stayed at 50% and another 10%-20% were directed towards the drivers on a points basis I could live with it a little more. Obviously the teams would offer less money, but this will only help cut the wheat from the chaff. However I don’t see the bankers offering much away for free.
Any thoughts on Bernie’s quote last week on offering Toyota, BMW etc an extra 10% of the ‘pot’ for signing the companies on to the Concord rather than the entities holding the teams? I wonder how much discussion that made within the sport. Bernie made it sound as though it was dismissed without much thought.
That still sounds like a bargain doesn’t it?
How much does Mercedes want back for their 40% of McLaren?
If Honda left without any sell clauses (if another manufacturer or other party came to buyout the team) then Honda is really stupid.
Honda pumped shed loads of cash at the former BAR team during their years there (not to mention the Adrian Reynard Pension Fund that owns the Brackley site) then there was the Super Agro experiment….not much change out of $130m over 2 years. Then they save face by bankrolling the team under the Brawn name…..so did they still own the team? will they collect the cash from Mercedes?….no i can’t imagine that they all of a sudden got “the smarts” with the F1 game. I’d say Galactically Stupid is the answer.