Rumour: Toto Wolff tipped to sell Mercedes stake as Sky Sports F1 pundit shares inside knowledge
Toto Wolff has been tipped to sell a stake in Mercedes – 10 years since he first acquired a stake in the Formula One team after initially being involved with Williams
Sky Sports Formula One pundit Craig Slater has questioned whether Toto Wolff should sell a stake in Mercedes given how much his asset has grown in recent years.
The outcome of Netflix’s Drive to Endure has helped blast the interest encompassing the game and the interest for F1 is ostensibly at its most elevated ever, with a record-breaking 24 races planned for the 2024 season. Bits of gossip are flowing that more closely involved individuals are looking for a way onto the scene, as well.
It has implied financial backers who purchased stakes in F1 groups over the course of the years have seen their worth develop considerably, with Wolff among those to have seen an ascent. As per Sky savant Slater, Wolff purchased his stake in Mercedes at €50million and it is currently worth more like €3billion. Wolff gained a 30 percent stake of Mercedes-Benz Stupendous Prix Ltd in 2013 subsequent to turning into a leader chief.
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 said on the Sky Sports F1 podcast. “Might this be not a bad time to kind of sell out?
If you’re talking about Williams being sold for about £140million and now being worth towards maybe even a billion pounds, never mind dollars nowadays.
“It’s interesting that [the] Andretti [family] have tried to get in, maybe would be put off by the price tag of buying a team. Are they good value to buy right now an F1 team? Why are the big sovereign wealth funds… and I suppose people are talking about [the rumours of] Aramco buying Aston Martin from Lawrence Stroll and paying top dollar for that.
“If you were Dorilton or Toto Wolff or Lawrence Stroll, who bought it via liquidation, yes, he paid off a lot of the creditors, but you’ve maybe paid a couple hundred million, or I think Toto paid 50million euros for his stake, it’s now worth three billion or whatever.
“I question this because it must be very tempting for some of the owners to consider selling it in the current environment, which is definitely more benign than it was a few years ago. Does that have its own incentive to sell when you’ve made such a big gain in a few years?
In the 2023 Constructors Championship, Mercedes came in second place, three points clear of third-place Ferrari. Mercedes, however, finished a massive 451 places behind leaders Red Bull.
