Aston offer
New Kuwaiti owners of Aston Martin claim to have already been offered twice what they paid for their stake in the company
Peek under his Dearborn desk and it is quite likely that you will find Ford chief executive Alan Mulally quietly kicking himself.
Little more than a month after selling off Aston Martin to a heavily Kuwaiti-financed consortium fronted by Prodrive boss David Richards, the delighted Kuwaitis were letting it be known that they’ve already been offered half as much again as they paid for their near-50 per cent stake.
The original deal valued Aston at £479m. At the time industry analysts said that even this was pushing it for a company that had only relatively recently started to make profits in what is one of the most volatile and recession- vulnerable luxury marketplaces.
But from the manner in which Investment Dar, the Kuwaiti group which paid close to £240m for its holding, disclosed receipt of the new offer, the inference was that the still- unidentified would-be investors had the credentials to be taken seriously. It looks, in short, like Aston has been more than a little undervalued.
So, is Investment Dar about to take the money and run? Don’t count on it. The vast amounts of investment cash sloshing around Kuwait and the other Gulf states have got endless ways of turning a fast buck, but Aston Martin is unlikely to prove one of them – the iconic brand is seen as a hugely valuable image-builder for a Gulf region desperate to present a modern, entrepreneurial, pro-Western face to the world.
