Craig Slater of Sky Sports Formula One has questioned whether Toto Wolff should sell a stake in Mercedes given how much his asset has grown in recent years.
The success of Netflix’s Drive to Survive has increased interest in the sport, and demand for F1 is arguably at an all-time high, with a record-breaking 24 races scheduled for the 2024 season. More interested parties are rumored to be looking for a way onto the scene as well.
It has meant that investors who have purchased stakes in F1 teams over the years have seen their value rise significantly, with Wolff among those to benefit. Wolff bought his stake in Mercedes for €50 million, according to Sky pundit Slater, and it is now worth more than €3 billion. Wolff became an executive director in 2013 and acquired a 30% stake in Mercedes-Benz Grand Prix Ltd.
“One or two well-placed insiders have told me that maybe some ownership within Formula 1 have looked at the value of their team has increased and have asked the question, has the sport peaked?” Slater stated on the Sky Sports F1 podcast. “Could this be a good time to sell out?”
“If you’re talking about Williams, he was sold for around £140 million and is now worth possibly even a billion pounds, let alone dollars.”
“It’s interesting that [the] Andretti [family] have tried to get in, but they might be put off by the cost of purchasing a team.” Are they a good buy right now for an F1 team? Why are the big sovereign wealth funds… and I’m sure people are talking about Aramco buying an Aston Martin from Lawrence Stroll and paying top dollar for it.
“If you were Dorilton, Toto Wolff, or Lawrence Stroll, who bought it through liquidation, yes, he paid off a lot of the creditors, but you’ve probably paid a couple hundred million, or I believe Toto paid 50 million euros for his stake, and it’s now worth three billion or whatever.”
“Does that have its own incentive to sell, when in a few years you’ve made such a big gain, which is why I question, it must be quite tempting for some of these owners to maybe think about offloading it in the present climate, which is certainly benign compared to where it was a few years ago.”
Mercedes finished second in the 2023 Constructors Championships, three points ahead of third-place Ferrari. However, Mercedes ended up a mammoth 451 behind leaders Red Bull.
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