28/06/2023
NEWS STORY
Former team owner, Eddie Jordan has hit out following yesterday's announcement of a €200m investment in Alpine which values the French F1 team at $900m.
In investing the €200m, The Investor Group, which comprises Otro Capital, RedBird Capital Partners and Maximum Effort Investments, has acquired a 24% equity stake in Alpine, and accordingly values the F1 team at around $900m.
The deal comes in the wake of F1 CEO, Stefano Domenicali's claim that teams are rejecting offers of "almost billions" from newcomers eager to enter the sport.
"If you look what has happened in such a short term, talking about the value of one team, that was not many years ago, I would say two years ago when the new Concorde Agreement has been signed, when there was the talk about what is the value of a team that has to come in F1, there was a number put on the Concorde Agreement that was 200 million," Domenicali told the Beyond the Grid podcast. "Which at the time seemed unreachable, because there were teams in the past that were sold for £1.
"Now the market is offering almost billions to teams," he added, "and they are refusing that. Can you imagine that? That gives you the perspective of what we are building as an ecosystem. We are building important structure, important dynamics of which the more everyone is growing, the better and the stronger is the business platform which we are all working in."
However, as Pitpass pointed out at the time, the biggest deal in recent years was the sale of 33% of Mercedes to INEOS, which many claimed put a £1 billion value on the team because INEOS was allegedly initially due to buy 70% for £700 million.
However, INEOS actually paid the grand total of £208.4m for its 33% stake which put a £625.2m value on the multiple world champions, only around four times what Mercedes paid for Brawn in 2009.
Jordan is equally sceptical about the valuation placed on Alpine.
"I don't believe it," he told GB News. "First of all, I won't use the word fake news, but I mean, there's absolutely no way from an accounting point of view, the financial model doesn't stack up. That's number one.
"It's all very nice and very sexy to put these figures on things but they need to be supported and they need to be authorised," he added.
"To value something of that level at a gross value of £700m, it's preposterous," he declared. "It's ridiculous. What does that mean for the value of people like Ferrari or Mercedes or a Red Bull for example? That is what I consider to be the value of those teams. Alpine... it's just not even close to that yet."
However, it wasn't the valuation of the team or even the size of the investment that put the Alpine story in the headlines yesterday, but rather the fact that Hollywood actors Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney are involved, the pair having bought Wrexham Football Club in November 2020.
According to Pitpass sources, Reynolds and McElhenney were given small stakes in Alpine for a nominal amount in return for making appearances at races and promoting the team in interviews as the sport continues its fixation with celebrities.
Jordan agrees.
"They're hugely big stars and a huge addition particularly for the American market, which is probably where Renault was trying to look forward to," he said. "They're probably not putting a lot of their own money into this.
"I would say that the real people behind it in the States who have taken this investment, they're using these two stars," he added. "Formula One is going through the roof and in terms of the sport, it's behind football of course, but there's actually only ten franchises, whereas in football you've got thirty to forty in each country throughout the world.
"So you multiply all of that out and then ask yourself, what is the value of having something in a niche market like Formula One?
"Why is the team not called Renault?" asked the man, whose team went to to enjoy more name changes than Cheryl Cole. "Are they hiding behind something?"