Wolff Preparing to Divest Stake Pricing Mercedes F1 at £4.6bn
Toto Wolff is in final negotiations to offload part of his ownership stake in the Mercedes Formula 1 team.
The deal estimates the Mercedes team at £4.6bn – a record for an F1 team – after the McLaren team were valued at £3.5 billion in a change of corporate structure last September.
The Austrian executive, who holds a 33% stake of Mercedes F1, would sell a shareholding in the region of five percent.
The 53-year-old will remain as team boss and chief executive officer if the sale goes through.
Shareholder Breakdown
The other shareholders in Mercedes F1 are Mercedes and chemicals giant Ineos, who both hold one-third of the company.
A Mercedes spokesperson stated: "We are providing no official statement on this. The management structure of Mercedes F1 stays unaltered, and each shareholder are dedicated to the ongoing success of Mercedes-Benz in Formula One."
Valuation Growth
This arrangement signifies a substantial rise in worth of Mercedes F1 since Ineos acquired its stake for £208 million in 2022.
The rise reflects the growth in valuations of Formula 1 outfits in the past few years due to the growing popularity of Formula 1 globally.
This trend was evident with the box-office performance of the F1 movie featuring Brad Pitt, which was released in summer 2023 and earned over $630m (£458 million) at the box office.
It is Pitt's most successful movie and the most successful sports movie ever released.
Present Performance
The Mercedes team are second in the team standings, trailing McLaren Racing, with three Grands Prix left this season.
Their lead driver George Russell has won two of the 21 races so far and is fourth in the drivers' championship behind McLaren drivers Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri, and Red Bull Racing's Max Verstappen.
Mercedes secured a record eight straight constructors' championships and seven drivers' titles, six for Lewis Hamilton and one for Nico Rosberg, from 2014 and 2021.
