JPMorgan Chase & Co. acted as the group’s financial adviser and led a debt sale to finance the purchases of Dennis’s stakes.
Getting Cars in Driveways
As far as the racing team goes, it has been a bumpy year, amid disappointments with engine supplier Honda Motor Co. A new Honda engine is boosting hopes from admittedly low levels: When the reorganization was announced, Ojjeh lamented that the team "is not currently achieving the on-track success in Formula 1 that we know it is capable of."
But racetrack setbacks haven’t derailed the company’s consumer-vehicle momentum.
“As a retailer and from a consumer point of view, we’ve seen nothing” disrupting operations, said Frigerio. “The company has been slowly, but surely, constantly more solid and growing in volumes and quality and services.”
McLaren North America President Tony Joseph is building out the dealer network, which now totals 18 in the U.S. and two in Canada, with plans to add stores in Montreal and Denver this year. He said he aims to limit the outlets to about 30, as opposed to about 40 for other exotic brands.
“We have a huge advantage, because when we launched, we launched in the markets we wanted to go in with the dealers we wanted to go with,” he said. “We want to be strategic about how we expand and where we expand, and we don’t want to over-dealerize.”
Personal Touch
But the carmaker is still small enough to invite customers to tour the factory in Woking, England, where the company is based. And when customers do, they might get to dine with the CEO, a driving enthusiast himself, who meets with them regularly. McLaren also organizes a couple of weeklong drives each year in such locations as Vancouver, British Colombia. Last November’s was in New Zealand.
Frigerio said he calls the 570S a “happy car” that just makes you want to drive when you put your hands on steering wheel, which is tapered on the dashboard side to fit more snugly in folded fingers.