Aston Martin announces major investment partner

Mercedes-Benz has taken a 20% share of Aston Martin.

The investment is intended to help the brand grow sales to about 10,000 by 2025, up from 5,862 vehicles sold last year, while increasing revenues to £2bn and earnings to about £500m in five years’ time.

The first stage of the investment deal will see Mercedes increase its stake to 11.8% as part of a £140m share issue.

Lawrence Stroll, executive chairman of Aston Martin Lagonda said: “This is a transformational moment for Aston Martin. It is the result of six months of enormous effort to position the company for success to capture the huge and exciting opportunity ahead of us.

“In those six months, since I became executive chairman, we have made significant progress. We have appointed a world-class leadership team with deep experience of this industry. We have aggressively and successfully de-stocked the dealer network to rebalance supply to demand. We have strengthened the financial resilience of the business and have taken decisive action on costs. We have also very successfully launched the DBX. I am extremely pleased with the progress to date and that we are ahead of plan on timing, despite operating in these most challenging of times.

“Today, we take another major step forward as our long-term partnership with Mercedes-Benz AG moves to another level with them becoming one of the company’s largest shareholders. Through this new expanded agreement, we secure access to world-class technologies to support our long-term product expansion plans, including electric and hybrid powertrains and this partnership underpins our confidence in the future.

“This is truly game changing. We now have the right team, partner, plan and funding in place to transform the Company to be one of the greatest luxury car brands in the world.”