Alpine F1 team completes €200 million stake sale to US investors
In June it was announced that Otro Capital had acquired a 24% share in Alpine Racing Limited for €200 million, a deal that valued the Enstone company at around $900 million.
That transaction has now been completed, and as part of the arrangement Otro co-founder Alex Scheiner recently became a director of the team.
Otro’s partners in the deal are RedBird Capital Partners and Maximum Effort Investments, the latter led by Hollywood star Ryan Reynolds.
Reynolds also brought fellow actor Rob McElhenney to the project in the wake of their successful involvement in Wrexham football club.
In October, Otro announced that a group of sporting legends were also behind the investment, including golfer Rory McIlroy, boxer Anthony Joshua, footballers Trent Alexander-Arnold and Juan Mata, and NFL legends Patrick Mahomes and Travis Kelce.
Several of them have already made appearances at F1 races as guests of the team.
Boxer Anthony Joshua
Photo by: Zak Mauger / Motorsport Images
Boxer Anthony Joshua
Alpine’s hope is that the new partners will help to raise the profile of the team in the USA as well as generating contacts with potential sponsors. The involvement of the investors is also seen as a strong statement of faith in the future of the team.
“What they are bringing is first trust in the project, which is very important,” said interim team principal Bruno Famin when asked by Autosport what the investors had contributed.
“If you have people investing a lot of money in your company that means that people trust and believe that the project will work. That’s the very first thing, and we are very happy with that.
“And the second thing they will bring, which is very important as well, is that they are very strong and very connected to potential partners and sponsors, and they will help us on that field.“
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Famin also said the team reaped the benefits from the very start of the deal: “It’s already in action. Now we don’t see the fruit yet of course, because it takes a bit of time, but it’s already in action.
“There was no delay, and everything is working from day one the deal [that] has been done.”
In addition to Scheiner, Alpine Cars CEO Philippe Krief and general counsel Michaell Smith also joined the board of the team.