McLaren Automotive is merging with UK luxury electric vehicle start-up Forseven Holdings in a radical makeover of the 62-year-old British supercar manufacturer under its new owner.
The integration was announced on Thursday after Abu Dhabi investment group CYVN completed its acquisition of McLaren’s auto business from Bahraini sovereign wealth fund Mumtalakat. CYVN, which backs Forseven and Chinese EV maker Nio, has also bought a minority stake in McLaren’s Formula 1 team as part of the deal announced last year.
The merger will enable McLaren to widen its model range beyond supercars to potentially include a sport utility vehicle, people with knowledge of the talks said. Forseven, a small company with about 700 employees, in turn wants to leverage McLaren’s heritage and brand strength. Forseven has previously said it wants to launch its own luxury EV by the end of the decade.
McLaren sells supercars that rival Ferrari and Lamborghini but the group has been lossmaking for the past five years. It has been engaged in talks with a number of carmakers for several years to form a partnership and secure new funding in order to develop new models, though no deal has ever materialised.
Negotiations with CYVN started about a year ago. The merged group will be led by Nick Collins, a former Jaguar Land Rover executive, while leadership for the brand’s automotive business will be disclosed later.
“I vehemently believe luxury is what Britain does brilliantly in automotive,” Collins told the Financial Times.
The new group will launch at a time when the UK car industry faces fresh costs from US President Donald Trump’s 25 per cent tariffs on foreign-made cars imported to America, which came into effect on Thursday.
McLaren produces all of its vehicles in the UK although the US is the largest market for the carmaker. People close to the talks said the combined group intended to continue sports car manufacturing in the UK but plans have not been disclosed for where they will produce other vehicles.
There have long been questions about when McLaren would enter the SUV competition. Ferrari, Lamborghini, Bentley and Aston Martin have all launched SUV-sized models that have helped increase sales and profits but McLaren has historically been cautious about joining the crowded space.
“To unlock the full potential, we think we should extend our line-up without diluting the brand,” McLaren’s chief executive Michael Leiters said in an interview last year.
People close to CYVN said McLaren’s new owner would invest over the long term, adding that its turnaround plan would be more wide-ranging than simply adding an SUV to McLaren’s traditional supercar range.
“It isn’t just about investing, it is about shaping the future of McLaren as a brand, as a business and its place on the global automotive map,” said CYVN chair Jassem Al Zaabi, who will also become chair of McLaren Group Holdings.
In addition to new funding, the merger with Forseven will also allow McLaren to tap into Nio’s EV technology, although Leiters has previously been cautious about whether the technology is ready to make supercars fully electric. McLaren currently offers petrol and hybrid vehicles.
Collins said the merged group would be flexible about its models and would “have the ability to adapt our offer to the pace of transition.”
