JUNE 5, 2002
Who is buying up CART shares?
In the last fortnight 25.6% of the shares in the company have been acquired by a group of related companies which appear to all be related to a Cayman Islands-based holding company. The minimum cost of this operation has been $30m to whoever is buying into the troubled US racing business.
According to filings at the US Securities and Exchange Commission the purchasers are Krevlin Glenn, Krevlin Advisors, Glenhill Capital, GJK Capital Management, Glenhill Overseas Management and the Cayman Island company Glenhill Capital Overseas Partners Ltd. They are all related to one another and have between them they have bought up 3,689,579 of the 14,718,134 shares and may even have acquired more as it is only necessary to registered purchases if the holding is more than 5% of the company. Until March CART had around 400 different shareholders but clearly the smaller investors are being bought out. In the course of last year it should be noted the company bought back more than a million shares, spending $15.5m. The firm is authorized to by back another 1.5m shares if chooses to do so. The intention may be to take the company private again. The interesting question now is who is going to be in charge if that happens.
The involvement of a Cayman Islands company would seem to suggest that the buyer is not an American.