Aston Martin up for sale

Kuwait-based, The Investment Dar Company (TID) is said to be looking to sell its 64 per cent stake in Aston Martin to settle a debt of 4.9 billion dollars. According to a report from Bloomberg Businessweek, TID has hired the Rothschild financial group to advise it on the sale and has so far spoken to Toyota and Indian SUV major Mahindra in this regard. 

While talks have been going between Mahindra and TID, Toyota had recently enlisted the services of an auditor to conduct a week-long study on the feasibility of purchasing a stake in the British firm. Toyota currently provides its IQ city car as the base for Aston Martin’s Cygnet. 

However, the report says the sale is proving to be difficult for the Kuwaiti firm as it is demanding the same price (800 million dollars) that it paid five years ago to buy the stake from Ford. Both Mahindra and Toyota have officially not commented on the issue so far. 

The British marque is one of the few sportscar makers today who is not owned by a major manufacturer. It still gets its mills from Ford but otherwise has no access to the American carmaker’s other facilities.  

This will ultimately prove a hindrance as R&D in all aspects requires large amounts of investment. This is something only a big manufacturer can provide these days, the best example of this is the turnaround JLR achieved after being bought by Tata. A new investor is also likely to help Aston expand its range to the other models like crossovers (maybe something like the Cayenne) currently a fast-moving segment globally.  

 The other major investor in Aston Martin is Ford which owns a 15 per cent stake. The rest is split between rally ace Dave Richards and Adeem investment another Kuwaiti company.