OCTOBER 27, 2006
A good quarter for Spyker
At the start of the year Spyker Cars was trading on the Euronext Amsterdam exchange at a price of $12 a share. Today the shares are valued at $25 and the trend has been an upward drift since the announcement that the company had acquired the Midland F1 team in September. The latest quarterly results reflect the new optimism and enthusiasm at the company, which paid $106.6m to buy the team, issuing new shares worth $67m. The majority of these shares were acquired by Michiel Mol, who has now joined the management board of Spyker as the Director of Formula 1 racing. "This has been an amazing third quarter in which we completed the acquisition of the Midland F1 Racing Formula 1 team, an absolute milestone for our company" said Victor Muller, CEO Spyker Cars, "The Formula 1 arena is an unparalleled way to both underline our commitment to racing and to benefit from a massive increase in brand awareness around the globe. Ever since our initial announcement we have experienced tremendous media exposure as never before resulting in a vast increase of brand awareness." The company has orders for 305 cars and expects to be able to announce at the end of the year that it has doubled its production this year to 100 cars. The company says that it expects to be profitable this year, despite the purchase of the F1 team. The company has opened three new showrooms in Europe and has appointed new dealers in Thailand, Texas, Chicago and Miami. The next step will be to improve on-track performance so as to increase interest in the cars and increase sales.