Liverpool's owners circle Cadillac's Formula One team
The owners of Liverpool and the Boston Red Sox want a seat on the Formula One grid, and the seller may not have much choice.
Fenway Sports Group, John Henry's sports holding company, is one of several suitors in talks with Mark Walter's TWG Global to buy part of its stake in the Cadillac F1 team, according to Sports Business Journal, citing a Wall Street Journal report. Walter owns a majority of the team and is seeking to sell a chunk at a valuation of at least $3bn. General Motors also holds a stake. There are other bidders and no guarantee of a deal.
The Guardian went further on Wednesday, reporting that FSG has discussed buying a majority stake for more than £2bn. TWG denies that a sale is imminent. FSG declined to comment.
Why Walter is selling
Walter is under investigation by the Justice Department and the Securities and Exchange Commission over the management of funds at his insurers, Delaware Life, Clear Spring and EquiTrust, the Guardian reported. Autosport says the probe concerns whether policyholder money was improperly put into affiliated businesses, involving about $20bn of loans and investments that allegedly were not properly disclosed. TWG has said "there has been no fraud".
The sell-off is already well under way. This summer TWG sold its controlling interest in the Los Angeles Lakers and its roughly 13 per cent of Chelsea, and the WNBA's Los Angeles Sparks are for sale. Walter, 66, says the Los Angeles Dodgers are not.
What $3bn buys
On the track, not much yet. Cadillac joined this season as F1's 11th team and sits last in the constructors' championship without a point. Getting in cost a $450m anti-dilution fee paid to the other teams, and Autosport reports that TWG and GM have spent well over $1bn more on the operation, with bases at Silverstone and in Fishers, Indiana.
What the money buys is scarcity. The grid is effectively closed, F1 revenue has more than doubled to about $4bn since Liberty Media bought the series in 2017, and since the budget cap arrived the top teams turn a profit. A franchise with no points can be priced like a trophy because there are only 11 of them.
FSG has cash to spend. It sold 38 per cent of Liverpool this summer, a deal that left the club valued at £5.5bn, against the £300m FSG paid for all of it in 2010, and it already owns half of the Nascar team RFK Racing. For a buyer, the best time to bid for a trophy asset is when its owner needs to raise money.
_Image: Sergio Pérez in Cadillac's MAC-26 during qualifying for the 2026 Italian Grand Prix at Monza. Photo by Eustace Bagge, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 4.0. Cropped._
