The Cadillac F1 Team is For Sale – If You Have $3 Billion

Rumors have been swirling for months and now it appears, where there's smoke, there's fire. And we're not just talking about the Cadillac F1 team's brake issues.Mark Walter is reportedly exploring a sale of his Cadillac Formula 1 stake, with an asking price of no less than $3 billion and at least seven interested parties, according to three people familiar with the process. The team is wrapping up its debut F1 season, and despite an even worse than anticipated campaign, that doesn't seem to have had any impact on the valuation.Walter controls the team through TWG Global, which houses his racing holdings in F1, IndyCar, and NASCAR under its TWG Motorsports division. The operation is run jointly with General Motors and its Cadillac subsidiary. TWG holds controlling ownership, although the split between the partners has not been disclosed. The firm had not responded to inquiries about the sale.The move would reverse a position TWG stated plainly just last month. Once Walter agreed to sell the Los Angeles Lakers to Joshua Kushner and Bob Iger for $12.5 billion, the firm ruled out any sale of the Cadillac F1 team or MLB's Los Angeles Dodgers. "TWG is not considering exiting its stake in the Cadillac Formula 1 team or any other part of TWG Motorsports," the firm said in a long statement.That statement addressed speculation about Walter's sports portfolio after he drew scrutiny over undisclosed related-party dealings at insurance companies he controls through Guggenheim Partners, the firm he co-founded and leads as CEO. The nondisclosures spurred two federal investigations.Walter has also sold his 13% stake in Chelsea to Clearlake Capital, and he is reportedly seeking a buyer for the WNBA's Los Angeles Sparks at $700 million. On the Dodgers, Walter said last week, "We are going to keep the team no matter what."To launch the operation, the partners paid a $450 million dilution fee and committed at least $1 billion more. The team is reportedly tracking toward a loss of about $400 million this year, a figure driven largely by startup costs and a commercial business that is still building.On track, Cadillac has yet to score a point, and Sergio Perez extended his contract through at least 2029 last week.F1 valuations have climbed sharply with the cost cap and Liberty Media's commercial expansion. Sportico valued the 10 grid teams at an average of $3.42 billion last year, up 48% and more than double its 2023 average of $1.61 billion.