Toto Wolff Preparing to Divest Stake Pricing Mercedes F1 at £4.6 Billion
Toto Wolff is engaged in advanced talks to sell part of his shareholding in the Mercedes Formula 1 team.
This transaction values Mercedes at £4.6bn – a record for an F1 team – after McLaren was appraised at £3.5bn in a change of ownership structure last September.
The Austrian executive, who holds a 33% stake of Mercedes F1, plans to divest a shareholding in the region of five percent.
Wolff, aged 53 would stay on as team principal and CEO should the deal proceed.
Shareholder Breakdown
The other shareholders in Mercedes F1 are Mercedes-Benz and chemicals giant Ineos Group, who each also own a third of the company.
An official representative said: "We are providing no official statement on this. The management structure of Mercedes F1 will remain unaltered, and each shareholder are fully committed to the ongoing success of Mercedes-Benz in Formula One."
Valuation Growth
The deal would represent a substantial rise in worth of the Mercedes team after Ineos Group acquired its stake for £208 million in 2022.
This surge demonstrates the expansion in market values of F1 teams recently as a consequence of the growing popularity of the sport around the world.
This was also seen in the box-office performance of the F1 movie starring Hollywood star Brad Pitt, which was released last summer and earned over $630 million (£458 million) at the box office.
It is Pitt's most successful film and the highest-earning sports movie to date.
Current Standings
Mercedes are second in the team standings, trailing McLaren, with three races left in the current championship.
Mercedes' primary racer British driver George Russell has won two of the 21 grands prix so far and is fourth in the drivers' championship after McLaren drivers Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri, and Red Bull's Max Verstappen.
Mercedes won a record eight straight team titles and seven driver championships, six won by Lewis Hamilton and one by Nico Rosberg, from 2014 and 2021.
