Formula-one supremo Bernie Ecclestone has won a vote of confidence from the three banks that two weeks ago won a legal action to wrest voting control of his companies from motor racing’s commercial rights holder.
Bayerische Landesbank, JP Morgan Chase and Lehman Brothers acknowledge that without the 74-year-old at the helm, the business of grand-prix racing will be too complicated to administer.
”We would be badly advised if we were to exclude Ecclestone,” Gerhard Gribkowsky, chairperson of the formula-one holding company SLEC and a member of the board of management at the Bayerische Landesbank, told The Guardian newspaper.
”Over more than three decades he has established extensive contracts within the industry, sponsors, circuit operators and other involved parties.
”But there are limits. We will no longer allow ourselves to be pressed into a role in which we carry all the equity risk without saying a word.”
The banks inherited a 75% stake in SLEC after the Kirch media group, to which they had loaned $1,6-billion to purchase a stake in Ecclestone’s company, went into liquidation owing them the money.
They sued Ecclestone because they did not have control that reflected their majority shareholding, not because they wanted to get rid of him.
Ecclestone and the banks are now trying to prevent a breakaway world championship in 2008 organised by GPWC, the confederation of major car manufacturers.
The car makers want more than the 24% of formula one’s estimated annual £400-million commercial rights income they currently get.
”We take the issue very seriously,” said Gribkowsky. ”I think the market is too small and that a power struggle between the two series would harm both. But I don’t think the doors are closed yet.”
And he is eager for formula one to spread its wings further.
”The moves into China and Bahrain were without doubt right,” he said. ”It would also be desirable to go to Russia and India. With only two races in North America, we are under-represented compared to purchasing power.” — Sapa-AFP