JANUARY 10, 2005

BAT and Honda complete BAR purchase

As we reported on Friday BAT and Honda have completed their acquisition of the BAR Formula 1 team from the administrators Grant Thornton. The companies gave no further details of the deal except that the new holding company is called BARH Ltd. This replaces British American Racing (Holdings) Ltd and is registered at BAR's Globe House in London. It is a 55-45 joint venture between BAT and Honda. The completion of the sale will have little effect on the racing team itself although we expect that there will be some Honda men put into the management structure at Brackley.