SEPTEMBER 7, 2006

Spyker and Ferrari

As we reported a fortnight ago, the news that Spyker is negotiating for Ferrari engines for the Midland F1 team in 2007 should not come as a surprise. Although Spyker has yet to complete the purchase of the team, the Dutch car firm will be looking to Ferrari for the simple reason that one of its shareholders also holds shares in Ferrari. Ten months ago Abu Dhabi's Mubadala Development Company announced a strategic alliance with Spyker, acquiring 17% of the business and injecting new capital into the business. Mubadala owns five percent of Ferrari and is involved in a partnership with the Italian sports car company to develop a Ferrari theme park in Abu Dhabi. With such connections and F1 rule changes coming in 2008 to allow teams to build complete cars for other competitors, it is quite possible that Spyker might become a secondary Ferrari team. There is, indeed, potential for Ferrari and Spyker to become more and more closley linked in the longer term as Ferrari is now selling all the cars it can make and would benefit from controlling a second brand. Sharing technology and pushing up production gradually to Ferrari levels could provide a major new source of revenue for the Italians operation without having to go into the riskier Porsche-Maserati-Aston Martin segment of the market.