McLaren – Pascal Rondeau/Getty Images
McLaren has been forced to sell some of its prized heritage supercars to Bahrain to raise cash.
The British car manufacturer offloaded some of its collection of vintage Formula 1 racing cars and other rare vehicles to Mumtalakat, Bahrain’s sovereign wealth fund and its largest shareholder, in exchange for a £100m cash injection.
The move came after McLaren identified “certain technical upgrades” required in its £185,500 Artura supercar, which delayed deliveries to customers and hit the group’s finances.
Its collection is known to have included a McLaren F1 LM roadcar – one of only five to be built. Another model of the ultra-rare car sold for $19.8m (£16.2m) at auction in California in 2019.
The British company has also previously boasted of holding two of Ayrton Senna’s championship-winning McLaren-Honda F1 racing cars.
There were 54 vehicles in the heritage collection at the end of last year, down from around 200 in 2014.
McLaren declined to provide details of which cars it had sold, but said there was a market for the assets and that it sometimes sold a limited number to specialist collectors around the world.
A spokesman said the deals were “reflective of the long-term confidence of lead shareholders in the company and its business plan”.
The sales highlight the severity of the cash crunch facing McLaren, which came close to collapse earlier this year.
One supercar dealer described McLaren’s remaining collection as the “very best of the bunch”, adding: “They’ve resisted doing anything with them for a long time.”
While the cars have been sold to Mumtalakat, they will remain under McLaren’s care at its headquarters. It is understood the brand hopes to buy back the vehicles in future, although a repurchase option is not stipulated in the sale agreement.
The £100m cash injection is the latest in a series of emergency fundraising deals for McLaren, which has sold off its racing business and is facing uncertainty over its future.
The company secured £125m earlier this year from existing shareholders, which also include investment firm Ares Management Corporation and Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund.
That followed a £550m funding boost in August 2021, while McLaren also raised £170m through a sale-leaseback deal for its sprawling headquarters outside Woking in Surrey.
The carmaker’s problems have been fuelled by a global shortage of microchips, delaying the rollout of the hybrid Artura supercar and other models.
In third-quarter results this week, McLaren said that pre-tax losses ballooned to £260m in the nine months to the end of September from £69m in the same period last year.
Liquidity at the end of the third quarter stood at £87m, down from £171m last year.
Keyword: McLaren sells heritage supercars to Bahrain