German Car Zone

Is Aston Martin on the brink of insolvency? Britain's Guardian is reporting that the Kuwaiti fund that owns half of Aston is having trouble refinancing the debt it's incurred during the recent global economic crisis. It hasn't help that the fund failed to report its 2008 financial records on time and subsequently had trading halted on its shares. All isn't doom and gloom, however. Kuwait's Investment Dar says that it recently inked a deal that will at least buy it some time in working out a new plan to get out of its mess, but oil prices just aren't what they used to be, and money is hard to come by – even for wealth funds.

When Ford sold Aston Martin in March of 2007, times were better for the consortium that bought David Brown's legacy. Along with ex-racer Dave Richards, banker John Singers and Adeem Investment, Investment Dar bought the Bond-ride firm for $925m (£480m). Fast forward to late 2008 and Investment Dar was itself trying to borrow $1B (£630m) to refinance debt, and iteven defaulted on a $100m Islamic bond in April. So, the Dar finds itself in a position of having to keep its creditors at bay while it seeks to right the ship. The agreement they've reached now is known as a standstill agreement. That means creditors won't make any new individual claims for a while. The arrangement will continue until the end of the year and hopefully Aston Martin will survive the financial storm.


- REPORT: Aston Martin in jeopardy as parent company Investment Dar in financial turmoil — Autoblog

I thought it was a mistake at the time, but I think Ford actually ended their custodianship of AM at the right time.

Uh oh....Maybe Mercedes should buy them.

M

With what? Buttons? Beans? Marbles?

Were there not quite a few parties interested the last time AM was up for sale?

A loan I guess, but maybe not if they don't have any cash.


M

Hmm...That would be interesting. I don't know if anyone else could buy them except for VAG. But they already have enough supercars under their belt.

No loans.

Remember they had to invite Kuwaitis into shareholder structure in the Spring - to get fresh money since they didn't get any loans to save the net liquidity of the Daimler company.

IMO nobody is now interested in AM. Not even VW & BMW. VW is still bothered with Porsche, and looking to acquire Suzuki. While BMW are putting all money into Project i & other sustainability goals.

But ... If the Kuwaiti state fund (the one which has stake in Daimler) has money they can buy AM - and maybe later merge it with Daimler - for exchange for more Daimler shares. Who knows ...

Interesting ... but right now BMW AG is the only German carmaker with no major foreign shareholder in the shareholder structure.

Opel - Canadian-Russian consortium (Magna-VAZ)
Porsche / VW - Qatari state fund
Daimler - Kuwaiti state fund

That sounds right. VW surely couldn't and I wouldn't want them to take on another brand like AM. If the Kuwaiti fund could someone get Daimler and AM together we'd have a dream matchup. First order of business is to dump the Aston V12 for a AMG V12, specificially the one used in the Zondas.


M

Interesting development. I for one am hoping for a BMW/MB takeover.