Toto Wolff is in final negotiations to sell a portion of his ownership stake in the Mercedes Formula 1 team.
This transaction estimates Mercedes at £4.6 billion – a record for a Formula 1 squad – following McLaren was appraised at £3.5 billion in an adjustment to ownership structure in September.
The Austrian executive, who holds one-third of the Mercedes F1 operation, plans to divest a shareholding approximately 5%.
Wolff, aged 53 will remain as team principal and chief executive officer if the sale goes through.
Shareholder Breakdown
Remaining partners in Mercedes F1 are Mercedes-Benz and industrial group Ineos Group, who both hold a third of the company.
A Mercedes spokesperson stated: "We will be making no official statement on this. The management structure of Mercedes F1 stays unaltered, and each shareholder are fully committed to continued achievements of Mercedes-Benz in F1."
Valuation Growth
The deal would represent a significant increase in worth of Mercedes F1 since Ineos acquired its stake for £208 million in 2022.
The rise demonstrates the expansion in valuations of F1 teams in the past few years as a consequence of the increasing appeal of Formula 1 globally.
This was also seen in the box-office performance of the F1 movie featuring Brad Pitt, which debuted last summer and earned over $630 million (£458m) at the box office.
It is Pitt's most successful movie and the most successful sports film to date.
Present Standings
The Mercedes team are runner-up in the team standings, behind McLaren, with three Grands Prix left this season.
Their lead driver British driver George Russell has won 2 of the 21 grands prix so far and is fourth in the individual standings behind McLaren's Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri, and Red Bull's Max Verstappen.
Mercedes won a unprecedented eight straight team titles and seven driver championships, six for Lewis Hamilton and one by Nico Rosberg, between 2014 and 2021.
