Would Apple buy supercar-maker McLaren? Back in June, McLaren Group’s financial woes came into sharp focus as the company’s lawyers filed a petition in June warning that the company would run out of money if bondholders prevented it from mortgaging assets, including its Norman Foster-designed British HQ.
Chris Bryant for Bloomberg Opinion:
McLaren’s Bahraini owners subsequently arranged a 150 million-pound ($201 million) unsecured loan and bondholders were persuaded to allow a sale and leaseback of the extravagant lakeside HQ.
On Sunday McLaren announced the sale of a 185 million-pound stake in its Formula 1 racing team, which should stop it becoming a further drain on the company. Still, the manufacturer isn’t out of the woods: It lost 250 million pounds in the first nine months of 2020, and held less than 40 million pounds of cash at the end of September.
While help might arrive from another rich benefactor or private equity, a tech company might be a more useful partner and more tolerant of McLaren’s cash burn… Most of the big automakers are tightening their belts and probably aren’t looking to add trophy brands.
California might be more fruitful for the tech-rich McLaren. In 2016 Apple Inc. looked at buying a stake in the carmaker. The two companies share an affinity for engineering and good design. While the iPhone maker has since pivoted toward autonomous driving systems, rather than building a car, I wouldn’t entirely rule out a rematch.
MacDailyNews Take: If Apple were interested in buying McLaren, it would seem that McLaren Applied would be the focal point of said interest.
We work at the intersection of technology, data and human ingenuity to redefine what’s possible and are committed to a journey of relentless improvement that challenges convention, transforms markets and delivers powerful competitive advantage. — McLaren Applied
We’ve always tried to be at the intersection of technology and liberal arts, to be able to get the best of both, to make extremely advanced products from a technology point of view, but also have them be intuitive, easy to use, fun to use, so that they really fit the users – the users don’t have to come to them, they come to the user. – Steve Jobs