Aston Martin's New Boss Races Away With a Cool $46 Million Lawrence Stroll has already made a return on his investment in the ailing British sportscar maker. Aston is a lesson in how not to manage an IPO. (Bloomberg)
Aston Martins are not meant to be flashy like Italian cars. People buy them for their discretion, and in colors that don't make them noticed.
Per the request above. https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2020/01/31/business/aston-martin-bailout-lawrence-stroll/index.html Racing Point changes to Aston Martin F1 in 2021 Robb
Sure but lets look at what he has bought. A company with a fairly poor product line with few bespoke engines, a product plan which frankly looks impossible for a company of this size. Does it have brand value, maybe but based on what? What has been the last truly great "no excuses needed AM", I cannot think of any in recent memory which were lauded comprehensively at launch, the pattern seems to be launch a car, it gets heavily criticised, the factory then releases a "update pack" but the damage is already done. My gripe is so long as Aston doesn't built its own engines it cannot be seen as a bespoke sports car. The catastrophic depreciation they seem to suffer is perhaps indicative of a product which trades on looks but little else. I got out a DB11 the other day, got into an older FF and immediately it was evident how far behind Aston are. In my view a vanity project in F1 is pointless if the road cars aren't right. AM needs a big manufacturer.
Who do you suggest ? Which big manufacturer could invest or take over Aston Martin? I cannot see Volkswagen adding another brand to its stable, nor Mercedes. BMW perhaps? I doubt it. Could it be the Japanese? Toyota? I can't see the Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi alliance being interested in that, nor PSA and Chrysler-Fiat partners. Or the Chinese perhaps? Geely buys anything that isn't bolted to the floor these days: Volvo, Proton, Lotus, part of Mercedes, etc ... Your comment is somehow ironic; from 1991 until 2007, Aston Martin Lagonda was owned by Ford, at that time the 3rd worldwide car manufacturer. History has shown us that small brands are not really protected from financial crisis by big manufacturers; they are often the first to be sacrificed! When Ford cold cold feet, they got rid of Jaguar, Land Rover, Aston Martin and Volvo almost in one go! It had taken almost 10 years for Aston to recover, until CEO Andy Palmer came (from Nissan), and messed everything up with fancy ideas. The risk for a small bespole company bought by a big carmaker is that production figures have to go up, at the expense of quality, to please the shareholders. There is also the risk of the production being relocated to save cost, and the DNA ending up completely diluted.
This is an interesting synopsis/summary. Well bought in terms of price. With the budget cap arriving, this will rename a strangely named team in F1. The exotic market is awash in fast mid engine cars. Many with much more powerful 'brand' names. Rare to see they are, Aston's overall. So in a way stand out in the sea of auto's. SUV might be the only saving effort. I read yesterday of a focus on mid engine. So move to that to focus on a 'racing' heritage effort? Resource wise they cannot be ready to make an engine I would think. If Aston left the market - other than classic sculptures of previous generations will the modern market miss them? I dont think so at all. Certainly Stroll has done the analysis with his experts and would be interesting to know what his future will look like for the brand outside of F1. I sense 'rebrand' of Racing Point as a major focus certainly. Counting he does on the budget cap to aid in his effort to be more successful in F1. Attract sponsors with the 'Aston' name etc etc. An interesting pre-testing story it is lol
I found this after a bit of a search today - https://jalopnik.com/f1-billionaire-to-rescue-aston-martin-but-pull-back-on-1841380731 1st Gear: For Once, Geely Didn’t Get To Buy Up Another Struggling Carmaker Chinese auto mini-empire Geely has bought up and into struggling car companies all over the world, from Volvo to Proton to Lotus. As of only a few hours ago, it was Geely bidding to invest several hundred million dollars into Aston Martin. The little British independent makes the same lovely gas-burning sports cars and GTs it always has, but it has been having a hard time transitioning to EVs and getting an SUV into production. For that, it has needed cash. The news today is that Geely lost out in its bidding to none other than F1 driver Lance Stroll’s dad, Lawrence Stroll. Stroll the elder made his money backing Tommy Hilfiger, among other fashion brands. He is a big Ferrari fan but now has his own F1 team, which conveniently provides a seat for his son, Lance. That team, formerly Force India and currently Racing Point, will become an Aston Martin factory effort, as the Financial Times reports. The details of the investment are slightly more complicated, per the FT: Aston Martin will raise £500m in a rescue deal led by Canadian Formula 1 billionaire Lawrence Stroll as the luxury carmaker attempts to draw a line under a period marked by a calamitous initial public offering. A consortium led by Mr Stroll will inject £182m for a stake of 16.7 per cent in the company at a price of £4 per share, while Aston will raise a further £318m via a rights issue after the company’s results next month. Shares in Aston surged almost 30 per cent in early trading on Friday. Bloomberg also reports that “[h]e edged out rival suitor Geely, which also sought to invest in the sports-car maker” and gave a bit of clarification as to what’s going to change for Aston: Stroll’s presence will help steer the company toward its aim of becoming a luxury-goods company, [Chief Executive Officer Andy] Palmer said. “It’s going to change the dialogue in the boardroom,” he said. “The dialogue will change from automotive to luxury.” All right yeah that’s nonsense. The actual business change is that Aston is stepping back from EVs, as the FT notes: As part of the rescue, the company will delay investments into a suite of electric vehicles — which had been expected from 2022 — until after 2025, and has pushed back the release of its Ferrari-rival supercar until 2022. Investment will instead go into a V6 hybrid engine, which the company has said will be manufactured in the UK, and will help it reduce CO2 output from its cars. At present Aston uses V8 and V12 engines. This is annoying, as EVs are kind of interesting but F1-style hybrid V6s are a struggle for even the most ardent car enthusiasts to get interested in. Mercedes is having a hard as hell time getting them to work on the road, too. Good luck, Aston!
I would like to know what you thought was behind as good info to consider. Was the db11 a v12 or the merc v8? Robb
Was the V12 DB11. Which has in 4000 odd km's lost nearly 55% of its value. The FF felt years ahead in every single department. The DB11 is nice but the packing to me is very poor for such a large car, why bother creating such a huge car with completely useless rear seats. A 6yo cannot fit into those seats. I also found the centre console very fussy and again lifted straight from a Mercedes which is off putting in a supposed "English GT car".
In the sense every article of a new Aston tends to go along the lines of "beautiful BUT", there is always that "but", usually followed by "limited resources"
Men have different tastes in cars like in women, and one man's meat is another man's poison. No doubt you can have a partisan opinion, but since you pitch the FF against the DB11, I would say say that for many, the Aston wins hands down on aestethics. Unfortunately, Ferrari has produced very ugly cars for the last 15 years. Cars like the FF, or the GT4Lusso, that are more shooting-brake than sportscars, are poor specimen of the Ferrari brand. Even the Superfast is fussy and cluttered with unecessary creases on its flancs. The Astons are more gracious because their designers don't resort to cheap gimmicks to accentuate the aggressivity. Also, if you want a 4-seater, don't look at a 2+2 to satisfy your need.
The DB11 couldn't even be called a 2+2, more like a 2+0. As a car to drive the FF is miles ahead never mind the Lusso. The point remains Aston needs to be bespoke, not simply dumping the entire parts bin from MB into the interior. Is the DB11 a pretty car, sure it is but the huge depreciation suggests its a car not liked by the market so perhaps the aesthetics are not so important. Aston in my view needs to decide what it wants to be, an out and out sports car manufacturer or a luxury GT manufacturer which essentially what it has always been, for me the last great Aston was the old 1970's/80s Vantage, hand build brutish looks, big power, the quintessential GT car. When I see things like the Valhalla I just wonder which AM client is going to purchase that when you can wonder over to Porsche and grab a 911 turbo and buy a car with cast iron engineering and assured reliability. F1, sure it would be nice to see AM there but I'd rather they build fantastic road cars with the cash used to fund F1 where if they don't run up front the damage to the "brand" would fairly severe.
I agree, the previous generation Aston designs were so fluid and balanced evoking Golden Ratio proportions...simply beautiful. Unfortunately, the current generation has deviated from this and I feel they are losing their way. Hopefully they can come back to the purity of their artistic design. Sent from my 16M
Aston is a luxury GT manufacturer, not a sportscars brand. They should stick to that. I blame the last CEO, Andy Palmer, for deviating from that brief. The Valkyrie and Valhalla mid-engine sportscars don't share any DNA with the rest of the range and risk to be rejected by traditional Aston customers. Lawrence Stroll has in the past turned luxury brands into commercial success, so I hope he will achieve that with Aston Martin too.
https://racer.com/2020/02/18/aston-martin-set-to-cancel-hypercar-program/amp/ He’s cutting excess to go toward F1 team and fix their main car sales issues... Robb
Very sensible decision, I think. The Newey-designed Hypercar didn't have any DNA with the Aston brand.
I knew it was not too long ago, just not sure of date. Amazing that it was such a small amount of cars for the many years it was around till then. When did they get taken over?
