After months of negotiations for the sale of the 840,000 square meter facility, a deal was announced on Tuesday for the purchase of the factory by the American company Global Net Lease (GNL).
The transaction is expected to close in the second quarter of this year and includes a 20-year lease for McLaren.
James Nelson, CEO of GNL, said, “We are pleased to announce that this premier facility is joining the GNL portfolio.
“The state-of-the-art buildings at McLaren Group’s headquarters have won numerous awards, were designed by renowned architect Norman Foster and are the type of mission-critical, net-rented properties that make up the GNL portfolio.”
McLaren has had serious cash flow problems over the past year, and when it looked for ways to bolster its finances, it believed it had no benefit from having cash on its factory floor.
The company was pursuing a sale-and-leaseback deal to get an immediate financial boost as it would allow them to take advantage of the expansive facility in Woking and then invest that money back into the company.
Daniel Ricciardo, McLaren MCL35M
Photo by: Mark Sutton / Motorsport Images
Last year, McLaren CEO Zak Brown stated, “Why is all this money tied up in real estate? We’re not a real estate company. We’re a racing team and an automotive company. And that’s the beginning of the journey to clean up the balance sheet.” [at McLaren].
“I think the majority of businesses in the world don’t own the properties they rent out.
“As you can imagine, there is a lot of money tied up in this building and it is not a very productive use of money when investing in your business.
“So we’ll end up selling it to someone. We’re going to get an extremely long-term lease and then use that money to invest in our business so we can grow our business. So it’s pretty typical financial restructuring.”
Since the first plans to sell the factory, McLaren’s financial position has improved. Last year the team took out a £ 150 million loan with the National Bank of Bahrain and attracted new American investors such as MSP Sports Capital, who bought a significant minority stake in the team for £ 185 million.
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