Formula 1 News

Spyker F1 Team sale confirmed 

Spyker Cars N.V., Formula One constructor and Manufacturer of exclusive premium sports cars, has announced that negotiations to sell it Formula One Team to the consortium of Vijay Mallya and Strongwind have resulted in an initial agreement on the main discussion points.

Both parties entered into an exclusive 30 day negotiation period on the 31st August 2007 to negotiate the possible sale of the Spyker F1 Team to the consortium based upon an initial off of EUR 80 million. The recent negotiations have resulted in an agreed increased sale price of EUR 88 million. Out of these sales proceeds the following amounts will be paid:

• Midland Group (deferred purchase price) EUR 27.5m
• ABN-AMRO (current account) EUR 13.5m
• Strongwind (loans) EUR 17.3m
• Net Creditors (F1) EUR 13.0m
• Remainder EUR 16.7m
• TOTAL EUR 88.0.

For the sale of the Spyker Formula One team to become final several legal conditions still need to be met and discussions continue on these points. The sale details will then need to be approved by the shareholders of Spyker Cars N.V. in an Extraordinary Shareholders’ Meeting to be held on Saturday 29 September 2007. Announcement on specifics details of the agreement will be made in due course.

With the sale of the Formula One Team now agreed in principle, the management and Supervisory Board of Spyker Cars N.V. will return to the task of finalising the internal strategic review and associated refinancing which has been ongoing since may. Hans Hugenholtz, CEO ad interim, states: “We obviously regret having to sell the Spyker F1 Team, especially after the progress we showed at Spa and the promise of the revised B-Spec car. It has become increasingly clear that we could not continue to operate in both the world of Formula One as well as maintain the investments needed to grow and develop the road car division. Our first responsibility must always be to our investors, employees, dealers, suppliers and customers and it is therefore time foe for us to return to that core activity. We will now complete out search for a permanent CEO and CFO to implement our new strategy and build upon the global brand awareness that we have achieved until today.”