The Canadian billionaire owner of Aston Martin Formula One Racing is backing a £150m to £200m investment in a new manufacturing headquarters as he looks to build a £1bn outfit within five years.
Lawrence Stroll, who led the consortium that rescued UK luxury carmaker Aston Martin Lagonda last year in a £500m bailout, is pressing on with the investment despite inflationary pressures driving up costs.
“Steel’s gone up, lumber has gone up, labor prices have gone up because of a shortage of labour,” Stroll told the Financial Times. “We probably have a 10 per cent cost increase pre-Covid price to post-Covid price.”
Stroll’s ownership of Racing Point, the former Force India team he bought out of administration for £90m in 2018, meant he was able to bring the Aston Martin marque back to F1 for the first time in more than 60 years this season after rescuing the carmaker .
Following F1 rule changes, including spending limits and a more even distribution of revenues among the teams, Stroll said the investment would help power the Aston Martin F1 outfit to a valuation of more than £1bn in the next five years.
Stroll, who built his fortune through upmarket fashion businesses such as Ralph Lauren and Michael Kors, said the new factory campus would help give the team a competitive advantage as Aston Martin seeks to win races and new fans, as well as boost the main marque.
British industrialist JCB chair Anthony Bamford, who was part of the Stroll-led consortium that rescued Aston Martin and whose company sponsors the F1 team, said: “It’s substantial amounts of money. It just shows confidence in the way forward for Aston Martin but also for all the manufacturers.”
Recommended
The 37,000 square meter campus, which will include a wind tunnel to test and help improve aerodynamic performance and speed, is located near the Silverstone racetrack in Northamptonshire. Work on the site is under way and Aston Martin said it would be the first new F1 factory in the UK since rival McLaren opened its Woking campus in 2004.
Aston Martin F1 expects to complete work on its new headquarters by early 2023, after construction had been delayed by the pandemic.
Stroll is talking to banks about various funding options, including bond issuance or a traditional mortgage, though said he was less keen on sale-and-leaseback arrangements.
“Right now, I’m just financing it myself,” he said. “I’d like to be in control of the building . . . you know, I don’t wanna have to go to somebody every time we want to change a lightbulb.”
Stroll, who recently lured four-time world champion driver Sebastian Vettel to Aston Martin, said he intended to add hundreds more staff on top of the roughly 550 employees the team has now.
Otmar Szafnauer, team principal, said the new facilities would help attract top engineers and drivers.
“Everybody’s in Formula One because they’re competitive, they want to win,” he added. “Once we show the world, look, we’re serious, we’re putting the infrastructure in place, then like-minded individuals will come.”
Weekly newsletter
Scoreboard is the Financial Times’ new must-read weekly briefing on the business of sport, where you’ll find the best analysis of financial issues affecting clubs, franchises, owners, investors and media groups across the global industry. Sign up here.
