Dutch looking to buy Minardi

The Rotterdam newspaper Het Algmene Dagblad this morning reported that a Dutch group is looking to buy a share of the Minardi team from Paul Stoddart. There were, it seems, meetings in Turkey to this end which included Stoddart and Bernie Ecclestone. The consortium seems to include the ABN AMRO bank, a Naarden-based private equity company called Greenfield Capital Partners, a Bermuda-based wealth management company called WP Stewart & Co, which runs its European operations from Rotterdam and Michiel Mol, the man behind longtime F1 sponsor Lost Boys, a Web-based media group, based in Amsterdam, which is now part of the Icon MediaLab agency. Mol has been a backer of Christijan Albers for some time with his Media Republic company.

Paul Stoddart is refusing to talk about deals at the moment, beyond saying that there are a lot of buyers floating around, but our sources say that the Dutch bid is one he might favour as it would leave him in charge of the team, while at the same time lifting some of the financial burden from his shoulders. Grandprix.com