McLaren founder and former chairman will focus on ‘other interests’ and will continue as consultant for F1 carmaker

This article is more than 3 years old

This article is more than 3 years old

Ron Dennis has severed ties with McLaren, stepping down from the board of the motor sport and technology companies he built up over 37 years.

The former chairman and chief executive of the British Formula One carmaker will sell his shareholdings in a transaction valued at about £275m.

Dennis, 70, was ousted from the helm of McLaren last November after disagreements with shareholders and put on gardening leave.

The Formula One legend founded McLaren International as a company in 1980, growing it into a supplier of motor sport technology and a manufacturer of McLaren supercars, developed as a standalone business in 2010.

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The McLaren group, newly formed to combine the tech and automotive arms with the acquisition of Dennis’s holdings, is valued at £2.4bn and employs more than 3,400 people.

Its majority shareholders will remain Bahrain’s Mumtalakat sovereign wealth fund, and Tag Group, a Luxembourg-based group run by Mansour Ojjeh, a major investor since 1984, but whose relationship with Dennis had soured. Bahrain’s Sheikh Mohammed will become the executive chairman of the new group.

Although the reasons for the fallout have never become entirely clear, Dennis was effectively forced out in late 2016, having failed in his own attempt to build up a majority shareholding to wrest back control of the company he had founded.

Dennis said the deal was “a fitting end to my time at McLaren, and will enable me to focus on my other interests”. He will continue working as a consultant, including as an adviser to the UK Ministry of Defence.

Sheikh Mohammed said that they would outline plans to revamp McLaren “in the near future”. Projects include a £50m plant to build supercars in Sheffield.

Dennis started his career as a motor sport mechanic before joining McLaren and guiding the Formula One team to unprecedented success. It dominated the sport in the late 1980s in particular, with Alain Prost and Ayrton Senna at the wheel, going on to win four consecutive driver and constructors championships.

The team had another brief period of success in 1998-99 before its fortunes were revived again with Lewis Hamilton in 2008, until the British driver departed to its rivals Mercedes.

McLaren has failed to win a single race since 2012, and the boardroom coup against Dennis came after two of the worst seasons ever for the constructor. A decision to switch to Honda engines, blamed for the McLaren slump, and the failure to find an overall sponsor for three years to replace Vodafone, had raised doubts about Dennis’s ability to lead McLaren.

Dennis’s other low point came in 2007 when he was at the centre of the Formula One “Spygate” scandal, with McLaren fined nearly £50m by motor sport’s governing body after being found in possession of a 780-page document containing sensitive data about a rival, Ferrari.

The end of McLaren’s boardroom saga marks another door closing on a legendary era in Formula One. Dennis is the latest in a string of key figures to depart the sport and industry in the last two years, including the Formula One commercial supremo Bernie Ecclestone and Ferrari’s president, Luca di Montezemolo.