The Sunday Times reported that McLaren’s single largest shareholder is the Bahrain Sovereign Wealth Fund, Mumtalakat. The fund is tired of the constant requirement for additional funding.
The report states that King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa has ‘called time on the losses.’
Apparently, Mumtalakat has provided £1.5 billion to McLaren over the last four years.
McLaren has faced delays with its Artura, and this has not helped.
As recently as November 2023, McLaren asked its shareholders for an additional £80m in funding due to a cash crisis.
They looked to Mumtalakat for additional capital after losses doubled over the previous year.
Evidently, McLaren has instructed JP Morgan to locate a Strategic Partner.
According to third-party sources, potential Chinese investors and Tesla have been approached.
Now, Elon Musk and McLaren could be fascinating. After all, he did buy a McLaren F1 in 1999.
Although rumour has it, he crashed it when rushing to meet with potential investors in his PayPal business.
He sold the F1 in 2007 for a significant profit.
In any event, he didn’t think driving a combustion engine car appropriate when he was extolling the virtues of electric cars!
