Bumpy road to recovery for Aston Martin: Car maker’s turnaround plan hits the skids as shares plunge 8.7% to a 17 month low
Lawrence Stroll’s efforts to revive Aston Martin showed a glimmer of hope as losses halved last year.
The Formula One motor racing billionaire is in the middle of a five-year plan to turn the firm he rescued in 2020 around and restoring its reputation by bringing it back to F1 and selling 10,000 cars a year by 2025.
But shares in Aston plunged to 17-month lows yesterday – falling 8.7 per cent, or 95.5p, at 1002.5p – as investors were unconvinced by the pace of progress at James Bond’s favourite car maker.
Slump: Shares in sports car maker Aston plunged to 17-month lows yesterday – falling 8.7% as investors were unconvinced by the pace of progress at James Bond’s favourite car maker
Aston’s fortunes contrast with rivals such as Ferrari, which Stroll says is a key competitor.
Ferrari went public in 2015, valued at £7billion, and is now worth around £31billion.
Aston was worth £4billion upon its debut on the London Stock Exchange in 2018. But profit warnings, fundraisings and an eventual bailout led by Stroll mean it is worth £1.3billion today.
Its struggles are likely to be thrown into even sharper focus by a listing of rival Porsche, which could be valued at £71billion.
Plans are also in the works for Lotus to join the stock market in future.
Aston lost £214million in 2021 despite sales surpassing pre-pandemic levels, while its debt level surged.
Problems with its £2.5million Valkyrie hypercar, which it says is the closest thing to a sports car that customers can buy, led to long delays and it only delivered ten of them in the last three months of 2021.
It took a £15million hit from the delays. Chief executive Tobias Moers said the company was ‘over the pain now’ and ‘able to deliver’ the project.
Sales rose to £1.1billion last year from £612million the year before as it sold almost 6,200 cars.
This month Stroll said interest in Aston cars had risen since he launched a new F1 team last year, featuring four-time world champion driver Sebastian Vettel.
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