Toto Wolff Preparing to Divest Shareholding Valuing Mercedes F1 at £4.6 Billion
Toto Wolff is in final negotiations to sell part of his ownership stake in the Mercedes F1 outfit.
This transaction estimates Mercedes at £4.6 billion – an unprecedented figure for a Formula 1 squad – following the McLaren team was appraised at £3.5bn in a change of ownership structure last September.
The Austrian executive, who holds one-third of Mercedes F1, would sell a stake in the region of five percent.
Wolff, aged 53 will remain as team boss and CEO if the sale goes through.
Shareholder Structure
Remaining partners in the team are Mercedes and chemicals giant Ineos, who both hold a third of the company.
A Mercedes spokesperson stated: "We are providing no official statement on this. The governance of Mercedes F1 will remain unchanged, and each shareholder are fully committed to continued achievements of the brand in F1."
Valuation Growth
This arrangement would represent a significant increase in worth of Mercedes F1 since Ineos Group acquired its share for £208 million in 2022.
The rise reflects the expansion in market values of F1 teams in the past few years as a consequence of the increasing appeal of Formula 1 globally.
This trend was evident with the success of the F1 movie featuring Brad Pitt, which was released last summer and earned more than $630 million (£458 million) at cinemas worldwide.
It is Pitt's most successful film and the most successful sports movie to date.
Present Performance
The Mercedes team are runner-up in the team standings, trailing McLaren, with three races left this season.
Mercedes' primary racer British driver George Russell has won 2 of the 21 races so far and is fourth in the drivers' championship behind McLaren's Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri, and Red Bull Racing's Max Verstappen.
Mercedes secured a unprecedented eight straight constructors' championships and seven drivers' titles, six won by Lewis Hamilton and one by Nico Rosberg, from 2014 and 2021.
