Wednesday 10 January at 09:21 : McLaren Group chairman, CEO and F1 team principal Ron Dennis has sold half of his share in the Woking based company.

The 'Bahrain Mumtalakat Holding Company', wholly owned by the Kingdom of Bahrain, took a thirty per cent stake in McLaren and is now the highest shareholder behind Mercedes' parent DaimlerChrysler AG, the team said in a statement late on Tuesday.

Alongside Dennis, the Saudi entrepreneur Mansour Ojjeh also sold half of his identical 30 per cent stake. Mercedes retains 40 per cent, but Tuesday's news ends speculation that the German carmaker was looking to buy McLaren outright.

The statement said of the deal: "As is required, an application is currently being made for the necessary competition law clearances which are expected to be received within a period of 6 weeks.

"The company will continue to be managed by its existing management team (and) no further comment will be made at this stage."

The financial details of the deal were also not released, but DaimlerChrysler paid about (US) $400m for its original stake in 1999.

GMMF1
DailyF1News.com