When Toto Wolff was announced as a as shareholder and executive director of the Mercedes F1 team at the start of 2013, the fact that he retained a stake in Williams - which he had bought from Sir Frank Williams and Patrick Head in 2010 – understandably caused much confusion in the paddock.

In 2016 it was announced the Austrian had sold off his remaining shares in the Grove outfit, however in recent months there has been speculation that he still holds 5%.

Claire Williams has now clarified the situation in bid to end the speculation.

"Toto, as everybody knows, bought a shareholding a long time back now, back in 2010 from Frank and Patrick," she said. "He then, obviously, subsequently joined Mercedes and as part of that move he obviously had to divest his shareholding.

"Brad Hollinger, who is one of our minority shareholders at Williams and a non-exec director, bought the majority of those shares from Toto but has not completed on that remaining five per cent so they have returned to Toto's hands.

"Toto has not bought new shares in the business in the recent past or the near past," she added. "It was just an issue with a transaction."

In terms of new investors, following the announcement that the company was looking at a range of ideas to provide funding, including selling the team, she was giving little away, other than to say that progress is being made.

"We are happy with the process and how it is going so far," she said. "We have received a number of interesting potential investors and we are talking to those at the moment and they are of a high quality, which we are delighted about and we continue to go through that process at the moment."

Asked about a timescale, the team having previously forecast it might take three to four months, she said: "At the start of it we anticipated that it would take three to four months and we're still on that timeline at the moment."

In view of her optimism in terms of investors, she was asked if this signals that the parameters have changed, and Williams is no longer 'up for sale'.

"The parameters haven't changed," she replied, "and obviously, as everybody knows, Williams is a listed company, we have to operate as per the takeover code and panel and their guidelines, that they dictate and that's why the strategic review process is as it is.

"We are looking for either investment into the team, the disbursement of a minority or a majority shareholder or core sales. We're still thinking along any of those lines.

"The options are available to us and it will be the board's decision as to the best option that's put on the table."

At the time of the announcement that the team might be up for sale, Williams revealed that it had split with title sponsor RoKIT. Asked why the relationship had broken down and whether the resultant shortfall in cash would impact performance and updates, she said: "For legal reasons I can't go into any further detail around the termination of our ROKIT sponsorship except to say that we terminated it and yet we fulfilled all of our contractual obligations with ROKIT.

"Unfortunately, it was a fantastic partnership for us at the beginning," she added, "and we're incredibly disappointed that we're in this situation. But it is what it is and we have to move on.

"We have some very clever people at Williams that manage our money," she continued, "and we've managed to secure the funding in order to keep us racing this year so that doesn't change.

"So it has no impact on what we are able to do this season, whether that be with regards to the upgrades that we had planned etc. But apart from that, I'm afraid I can't say a whole lot more."

LATEST NEWS

more news >

LATEST IMAGES

galleries >

Click to go to the main galleries section

READERS COMMENTS

1. Posted by Editor, 16/07/2020 9:24

"@ Trackrecords

A recent article by Chris Sylt, put Toto's wealth at around £500m"

Rating: Neutral (0) Rate comment: Positive | NegativeReport this comment

2. Posted by trackrecords, 16/07/2020 9:15

"How much money has Toto got in various F1 pies, or to be more precise, how much money has Toto got? Rather coincidental that back in 2003, at one of Oulton Park's round of the Formula Renault UK championship, on the podium should be two drivers who would come to rely on Toto for their money: Lewis Hamilton and Susie Wollf (nee Stoddard). Having said that, perhaps I'd better dig out that old results sheet - who knows, true to form, he could be paying a load of other
British drivers too?"

Rating: Neutral (0) Rate comment: Positive | NegativeReport this comment

Wolff still holds stake in Williams

LATEST NEWS

RELATED ARTICLES

LATEST IMAGES

POST A COMMENT

Post your comment

READERS COMMENTS

Share this page