The acquisition by Liberty Media is confirmed

The press release published late yesterday evening only confirmed rumors about the upcoming takeover of Formula 1. Liberty Media, an American media group owned by John Malone, will become the owner of the flagship motorsport discipline.

The acquisition will be carried out in several stages, with an initial stake of 18,7% (for $746 million), before taking over the entirety of Delta Topco, parent company of the F1. In total, nearly 4,4 billion dollars (more than 3,9 billion euros) will be invested by Liberty Media, not including F1's debt estimated at more than 4 billion dollars.

In the operation, Liberty Media will place Chase Carey at the helm of Formula One Group, who remained vice president of 21st Century Fox, as president, replacing Peter Brabeck-Letmathe. The latter will remain on the F1 board as a non-executive director.

As he announced it to Reuters, Bernie Ecclestone will stay on as chief executive. The discipline has until now remained under the control of CVC Partners which will however remain represented in the new organization chart of Formula One Group and will retain shares.

“We are delighted to be part of Formula One,” said Greg Maffei, President and CEO of Liberty Media. We believe that our long-term vision and our expertise with the media and athletes will allow us to be good managers of Formula One and this will benefit the fans, the teams and our shareholders.

We look forward to working closely with Chase Carey and Bernie Ecclestone to support the next phase of growth for this globally popular sport. »

The acquisition should be completed in the first quarter of 2017. The teams involved will also be able to participate in investments in F1 after the acquisition. Several of them have already expressed an interest.