Another McLaren shakeup

Mansour Ojjeh

Recent filings at Companies House reveal that on 26 July, Mansour Ojjeh stepped down as a director of McLaren Racing, while also stepping down as a director of McLaren Marketing and McLaren Applied Technologies.

Ojjeh's involvement with McLaren goes back to the early 80s, when his TAG-Group bought a majority stake in the Woking company. His holding now stands at 15.9%, with a further 62.6% held by the Mumtalakat sovereign wealth fund and the rest held by a number of investors, including Michael Latifi who bought a 10% stake for £203m in May.

The filings also reveal that on 25 July, Zak Brown was appointed a director at McLaren Racing along with Paul Buddin and John Allert. Brown and Buddin are also appointed directors at McLaren Marketing, while Buddin, the chief financial officer for McLaren Automotive, is appointed a director at McLaren Applied Technologies.

It is unclear why Ojjeh has stepped down as a director, but within minutes of the move being revealed in the Independent, despite the fact the sport is on a mandatory two week break, a statement of denial had been issued to a number of outlets stating that "Mansour Ojjeh has not left the business and remains a director of McLaren Group".

While he is indeed still a director of the McLaren parent company, the McLaren Group – a fact that was not denied by the Independent – there was also no suggestion that he had left the business, merely that he had stepped down as a director of three of the McLaren companies.

Furthermore, while McLaren's statement claims that the move is aimed at "simplifying our corporate structure", one has to wonder why, as one director steps down two or three more are appointed.

Since the 'departure' of Ron Dennis, who was ousted in a boardroom war with Ojjeh and Bahrain's Mumtalakat sovereign wealth, the company has been restructured under the McLaren Group, with Ojjeh and executive chairman Mohammed bin Essa Al Khalifa forming the executive committee.

The news of Ojjeh's stepping down as a director of the three McLaren companies comes weeks after it was revealed that the McLaren Group, has been drawn into an investigation by the UK government. Pitpass