Has the value of F1’s commercial rights collapsed?

How much is something worth? The answer is the best price someone is willing to pay for it. The commercial rights to Formula One have been acquired by the international world of corporate finance and have been traded in recent years amongst the various global funds as pieces of paper. Of course when the trades … Read more

#F1 Daily News and Comment: Friday 3rd October 2014

This page will be updated throughout the day. Please if you are on Twitter press the tweet button below. If you re-write and tweet individual story headlines don’t forget to include #F1. You may not realise how hugely important this is and has helped grow our community significantly Previously on The Judge 13: TJ13 #F1 … Read more

Secret share placements: Why is F1 selling 9% to North American Pensioners?

A chance discovery

I reported this yesterday, but from the number of visits there’d been many of you may not have seen the original short news bulletin. In the short time since I’ve further added some reflection and so this is too long for the daily news section.

Let’s remember that the only reason this story came to light was because I’ve been trawling Texas small and local media for F1 news prior to the circus arriving in town and became familiar with a number of publications.

“Formula One racing has received a $200m investment from the ‘Teachers Retirement System of Texas’. The largest public retirement system in the state invested the capital alongside Delta Topco Ltd., a holding company for Formula One Group”, the Austin American-Statesman reports.

The Austin Business Journal adds to this stating that according to analysts Formula One is valued at nearly $7 billion and the he investment by TRS represents 0.18 percent of its portfolio, which is valued at $113 billion.

So the teachers are hardly risking their retirement plans – more of a flutter. 4 days earlier, the ‘Canada Pension Plan’ announced it was investing $400 million in Formula One. That’s 9% of F1 owned by the Pensioner’s of North America. 

Read more