• Williams news

Team profits down 50%

Sir Frank Williams has little to smile about © Sutton Images

Enlarge

Related Links

• Championship:
• FIA Formula One World Championship

• Teams:
• Williams

With the Williams team struggling for points on the track in 2010, the Oxfordshire-based team's accounts paint an even gloomier picture.

Profits at the Williams Formula One team fell 50% to £4.5 million before tax last year after it lost sponsorship money from the bankrupt Icelandic investment company Baugur, whose brands, including the toy-shop Hamleys and the jeweller Mappin & Webb, sponsored the team in 2008.

Baugur was left owing Williams £10 million for the sponsorship but failed to pay up when it hit financial difficulties.

Iceland's Glitnir bank guaranteed to honour Hamleys' obligation but it was then taken over by the Icelandic government and Williams still had not received the money by the end of last year.

Last year Williams used its reduced profits to pay down debt and the team finished the year with cash of £3.9 million compared with net debt of £25.5 million at the end of 2008.

However, the accounts state that this position is expected to worsen because £14.6 million of the income it received last year was attributable to 2010.

There appears to be no light at the end of the tunnel for Williams, who will also lose an estimated £11 million of sponsorship at the end of this year when the Royal Bank of Scotland ends its partnership with the team.

Williams, who finished seventh in the constructors' standings in 2009, lie only one place higher so far this season wth only eight points to show for their efforts.

© ESPN Sports Media Ltd.