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McLaren has bought back most of Mercedes' stake

ESPNF1 Staff
March 18, 2010 « Button expects Melbourne to suit McLaren | »
Mercedes will continue to supply McLaren with engines at least until 2015 © Getty Images
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McLaren has bought back most of the 40% stake in its company that Mercedes used to own.

When Mercedes announced it was buying the Brawn team to compete on its own, McLaren revealed it would buy back the stake the German car manufacturer owned in its team.

Speaking at the launch of McLaren's road car division, Reuters quoted team principal Martin Whitmarsh as saying: "I think it is about 11 percent that is still owned by Mercedes, but it's not an important or significant number."

15% of the company is still owned by chairman Ron Dennis, while another 15% is owned by his Saudi business partner Mansour Ojjeh. A further 30% is owned by Bahrain's state holding company Mumtalakat.

Whitmarsh also revealed that in the long-term McLaren is hoping to channel some of the profits from the sale of its road cars into the F1 team.

"At some point, some of that money will come back into Formula One," he said. "The structure of our group is that they are stand-alone businesses so McLaren Automotive has to pay licence to use its brand. In the longer term future we will hopefully have a successful, mature, developed automotive company with a range of products and we may then choose to invest back in racing."

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