Mclaren's statment leaves a lot of possibilities.
They've said it's wholly inaccurate, not unfounded, and then clarified that there's been no change of ownership of Mclaren Group.
That could very easily
allow for Audi/VW having bought Mclaren Racing, and/or someone (perhaps BMW) buying Mclaren Automotive.... which is tremendously unlikely, but clearly something it going on behind the scenes at Mclaren.
CAR published this last night...
VW CEO confirms
www.carmagazine.co.uk
► Audi and BMW vying for McLaren assets
► BMW wants the supercar division
► Audi keen on Formula 1 team too
McLaren, the legendary Formula 1 team and supercar maker, is an acquisition target for both BMW and Audi.
BMW is reportedly focused on acquiring McLaren Automotive, the maker of cars including the Senna, 765LT and upcoming hybrid Artura. It would sit nicely in the company’s stable of British brands alongside Rolls-Royce and Mini.
Audi, meanwhile, wants the supercar business as well as the F1 team. Audi’s owner Volkswagen Group continually circles the pinnacle of motor racing, with both its Porsche and Audi brands periodically tipped to join the series.
Is McLaren vulnerable to a takeover?
McLaren has suffered a torrid time due to Covid-19. The Automotive division recorded a £222.9million operating loss in 2020, a swing from £91.1m profit in 2019. Last year, sales crashed by 64 per cent to 1659 cars.
McLaren had to make some 830 redundancies. And the group has been involved in a critical refinancing, selling the Woking HQ and leasing it back, and issuing £550m of new shares to provide liquidity and pay off a £150m loan.
The situation has improved in 2021, with revenue doubling in the first half of the year. However McLaren Automotive CEO Mike Flewitt (below) stood down in late October, after eight years in charge. One of his final acts was to start evolving the Track25 strategy, which proposed the launch of 18 new models in a six-year timeframe, into a plan called Horizon 2030. This is likely to slow down the pace of new derivatives, in favour of higher margin models and an electrification push.
Two former Volkswagen Group executives – both appointed McLaren Group non-executive directors in early October – will steer Automotive for an interim period. They are former Porsche CEO Michael Macht, who will run the technical and operations side, and Stefan Jacoby, who also worked at GM and Mitsubishi.
Talks with BMW said to be looming
Behind the scenes, mediators, brokers and agents have been busy examining options, assessing values, establishing strategies and evaluating risks and opportunities. A key player is Mumtalakat, the Bahrain state investment fund which owns about 42 per cent of McLaren. Reportedly Mumtalakat will have its first, on-the-record meeting with BMW in early December.
BMW has had ties with McLaren since providing the iconic F1 supercar’s V12 in the ‘90s. A few years back, the two companies had talks about McLaren collaborating on a mid-engined supercar for Munich, but the project never got off the ground.
For BMW, acquiring McLaren would kick the door to supercar heaven wide open. And BMW could do with a new sports car plan, because the cupboard is bare. The M8 is an overweight GT, the Z4 wouldn’t exist without Toyota and brand-shaping halo cars like Z8 or i8 are history.
Tag on to McLaren, however, and BMW would get instant access to a fresh line-up of potentially class-leading supercars and hypercars. Insiders claim that the engineering and design work needed to spin-off BMWs from McLarens is feasible, and the budget risks marginal. BMW would be confident of assisting development of McLaren’s high-performance electrified drivetrains, given it’s making the next M5 an excessively-powered plug-in hybrid and is pressing ahead with its next-generation of ground-up electric cars, the Neue Klasse.
It’s a mouth-watering proposition: a bunch of mid-engined BMW-McLarens to take on AMG-Aston Martin and Porsche/Audi/Lamborghini. It’s not clear whether BMW will go all-in for the F1 team too: it withdrew from the sport in 2009, in the midst of the Great Financial Crisis.
How would Audi benefit?
According to those in the know, Audi is bidding for McLaren Cars and for the F1 unit, said to be worth around £1 billion. Jörg Astalosch, 49, is the designated chief liaison officer in the Audi-McLaren talks. Previously in charge of Ital Design (also an Audi satellite), the former confidant of VW Group supremo Ferdinand Piech started his new job in October.
The new FIA regulations for 2026 are soon to be officially announced, which is expected to trigger Volkswagen Group’s official application to enter the series – run by Stefano Domenicali, former Lamborghini CEO. Adam Baker went the other way: from the FIA to VW Group to run its motorsports programmes.
Audi and Porsche are likely to fuse the F1 R&D work while retaining different set-ups and visual identities. One scenario suggests that Audi/McLaren will partner with Porsche/Red Bull to fight Ferrari and Mercedes in the upcoming hybrid/sustainable fuels era.
This could be a profitable enterprise for Audi and Volkswagen Group. Mercedes CEO Ola Källenius revealed last year that the AMG Petronas F1 commitment creates an annual media value of $1.5bn - and rising. Since Audi has pulled out of DTM and Formula E, the return on investment looks potentially sound.
But surely VW has too many sports car brands?
Rumours suggest Volkswagen Group has considered divesting brands including Lamborghini and Ducati; CAR’s Georg Kacher broke the story of Bugatti being spun-off to Croatian EV pioneer Rimac. So why bid for McLaren?
While the F1 connection is self-explanatory, an Ingolstadt source revealed, there are logical reasons to acquire McLaren Automotive. One is defensive: to block rivals from Korea or China – Geely reportedly was in talks with McLaren Cars last year – or arch-rival BMW.
In the long run McLaren could end up in sync with Bentley and Lambo to boost synergy effects in a profitable but increasingly volatile market. And in a single decade, McLaren has raced from nowhere to matching Ferrari and Lamborghini in ability and desirability – and there are admirers within the group who fancy driving it forward themselves.
It's not the first time BMW and VW Group have gone head-to-head for a blue-chip British car maker. In the late '90s both sought the then-combined Rolls-Royce and Bentley – with BMW ultimately getting the Spirit of Ecstasy and VW the Winged B.
