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Welsh businessman adds to his fortune with Prodrive share sale
publication date: Nov 19, 2008
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author/source: Robin Roberts
Welsh businessman David Richards has substantially boosted his multi-millionaire status and sold off 40pc of his Prodrive motorsport and automotive technology company.
He has accepted an offer from Kuwait based Investment Dar Company, which bankrolled his acquisition of Aston Martin nearly two years ago.
Prodrive was founded in 1984 by its chairman David Richards.
In the last 25 years it has won six World Rally Championship titles with Subaru; five British Touring Car titles with BMW, Alfa Romeo and Ford; as well as class wins at Le Mans with Aston Martin. |  | Today the company employs around 1000 people in the UK, Australia, China and Thailand. It runs motorsport programmes for the Subaru World Rally Team and Aston Martin Racing from the UK and for the Ford Performance Racing team in Australia. It also works for the world's vehicle manufacturers and component suppliers to develop new technologies for applications on the road.
The Investment Dar Company (TID) is an international shareholding company headquartered in Kuwait. TID is ranked among the largest listed investment companies in the MENA region employing over 450 people.
It owns and manages a group of specialised subsidiaries and associates and operates across a broad spectrum of business sectors including banking, finance, investment and asset management, real estate, insurance, manufacturing, logistics and consultancy in addition to major projects regionally and internationally. It has projects and assets under management exceeding US$ 15 billion.
David Richards, said, "Although we are best known for running motorsport programmes for Subaru and Aston Martin, we also work with vehicle manufacturers to develop new technology for the road. This investment follows a year of planning, during which time we have identified a number of opportunities to expand our motorsport and road car activities."This investment comes at a time when vehicle manufacturers are facing the immediate challenge of difficult trading conditions and the longer term technological challenge of reducing CO2 emissions.Richards added "Our business is ultimately about helping our customers to sell cars, not only their current models, but future products as well. I see a great opportunity to expand our current work developing the new generation of environmental technologies such as hybrid cars, hydrogen fuel cells and variable compression ratio engines. With our unique motorsport approach, we can rapidly take these technologies from concept to reality."
In 2007, David Richards led a consortium which saw TID acquire Aston Martin from Ford and Richards become chairman of the company. | | |
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