Bahrain Mumtalakat Holding Company expands its stake in McLaren Group from 60% to 100%.
McLaren has just become more Bahraini then British, as the supercar marque recently announced that its largest existing shareholder, Bahrain Mumtalakat Holding Company, has now taken complete ownership of the entire firm. Expanding its prior stake of 60% to 100%, the Bahraini sovereign wealth fund completes takes full ownership of the share capital of the automaker following the conversion of all preference shares into ordinary shares.
This latest deal sees the state wealth fund have complete ownership of the group’s McLaren Automotive arm, in addition to its majority stake in the group’s McLaren Racing motorsports outfit. Mumtalakat has been partnered with McLaren since a 2007 purchase of a 30% stake from its founding shareholders, former chairman Ron Dennis and the late French entrepreneur Mansour Ojjeh.
“We are delighted at Mumtalakat’s continued commitment to McLaren through this deal,” said Paul Walsh, McLaren Group Executive Chairman of this recent Bahraini takeover. “This will further enable us to focus on delivering our long-term business plan, including investment in new products and technologies, whilst continuing to explore potential technical partnerships with industry partners.”
And speaking of new products, McLaren has already hinted that it aims to debut a successor to its top-flight P1 later this year. This upcoming hybrid hypercar will allegedly pack an electrified V8 engine making over 1,000 horsepower in its all-new carbon fibre chassis, with it being teased to feature gullwing doors and 3D-printed suspension components.
McLaren has also previously angled that it will be debuting its first-ever SUV and fully-electric supercar, with both slated to arrive by 2028. This new Bahraini takeover of the company has been slated to provide the automaker with a more stable corporate footing to seek potential technological tie-ups in order to see both those aforementioned products make it to market.
Mclaren’s money troubles came into the forefront during the coronavirus pandemic, which initially forced it to suspend production of cars and led to the cancellation of racing activities around the world. The supercar marque had to take out £150 million (RM 895 million) loan with the National Bank of Bahrain, sold a stake in its F1 team, arranged a leaseback deal for its own headquarters and cut 1,000 jobs in order to repair its balance sheet in the wake of supply chain and production woes caused by this international health crisis. The supercar maker had even resorted to selling some of its historic vehicles in its fleet to Mumtalakat in 2022 to fund the delayed Artura hybrid supercar.
