Williams agrees sale of Williams Advanced Engineering stake

Running the team into the ground, Claire Williams needs money to keep its F1 team afloat so they have had to sell their majority stake in Williams Advanced Engineering to raise capital

Williams have announced a deal that sees them relinquish a majority equity stake in their sister company Williams Advanced Engineering.

WAE is the engineering services business of the Williams Group that owns the Formula 1 team. It was founded in 2011 and employs 300 people working across 40 different projects.

WAE was the company that supplied Formula E with its batteries from the inaugural season in 2014 until 2018.

Williams confirmed that the majority stake has been sold to an independent private equity firm controlled by EMK Capital, while they will retain a minority share.

In the official statement Williams CEO Mike O’Driscoll said: “We have rapidly grown WAE from an embryonic one client start-up, to a business with many clients in multiple sectors.

“The time is now right to sell a majority stake to enable WAE to further scale and develop its technologies.

“EMK Capital have a proven track record of success which will enable WAE to take advantage of these emerging opportunities and realize its full potential."

Craig Wilson, WAE’s managing director added: “Williams Advanced Engineering has developed a strong reputation for providing energy-efficient advanced performance solutions to a diverse range of sectors and blue-chip clients.

“This expertise and our technologies in areas such as electrification, lightweight structures, aerodynamics and precision manufacture will become even more relevant and in-demand globally going forward.

“This new ownership structure will enable WAE to take advantage of these emerging opportunities and comes at a pivotal moment allowing us to further invest in new areas of capability and technologies in order to realize the full potential of the business."