 Spyker confirms sale of F1 team
Spyker Cars has announced that it has agreed the sale of its Formula 1 team to Indian billionaire Vijay Mallya and the Mol family, subject to approval by its shareholders.
The low-volume Dutch sports car maker said it had reached an “initial agreement on the main discussion points” having entered into a 30-day negotiation period at the end of August.
As a result of those negotiations the sale price has been increased from 80 to 88 million euros.
The deal will be put to shareholders on September 29 and is expected to be finalised by the end of the month.
Spyker Cars launched a “strategic review” in May this year to look at a variety of refinancing options – including the sale of the F1 operation which it only acquired the previous September.
Last month it admitted it had liquidity problems as a consequence of both the core business and the F1 team making losses.
Hans Hugenholtz, the interim CEO of Spyker Cars, said the company had no choice but to sell the team to shore up its financial position.
“We obviously regret having to sell the Spyker F1 Team, especially after the progress we showed in Spa and the promise of the revised B-Spec car,” he said.
“It has become increasingly clear that we could not continue to operate in both the world of Formula 1 as well as maintain the investments needed to grow and develop the road car division.
“Our first responsibility must always be to our investors, employees, dealers, suppliers and customers and it is therefore time for us to return to our core activity.
“We will now complete our search for a permanent CEO and CFO to implement our new strategy and build upon the global brand awareness that we have achieved until today.”
The F1 team registered a 13 million euro loss in the first half of 2007, accounting for almost half of Spyker’s overall loss over the period of 29.9 million euros.
Source: itv-f1 ---------------------------------------------- | 
