Seasonal Musings

21/12/2009

Sauber has been awarded a place on the 2010 grid and I am sure that many readers will welcome the news as much as I do. Ironically, this may be due to the intervention of convicted fraudster, Russell King, apparently the front man for the Qadbak group of investors. As the Qadbak bid fell apart, BMW came to its senses and struck a deal with Peter Sauber.

Qadbak appears to be an amalgamation of Qatar, Bahrain and Kuwait and it, and its subsidiaries, operate from countries which are investor-friendly. Qadbak is registered in the British Virgin Islands and please note that I have not made any bad jokes about virgins, yet.

The media referred to a 'Qadbak bid', and terms such as 'mysterious' and 'secretive' were used of Qadbak. The fact is that there are wealthy funds that few outside the financial services industry have heard about. One has just bought into Renault and few F1 enthusiasts had heard of CVC before the fund infringed on our patch. We still do not know who has money invested there. We do not know who owns Formula One.

I have no idea of the details of the actual bid, but I do wonder about the real involvement of Qadbak bearing in mind what Russell King has done before.

About 20 years ago a business owned by King was in trouble, but he owned a rare Aston Martin valued at £600,000. King secreted his car in a garage, reported it stolen and claimed on the insurance. In 1991, he was sent down for two years.

While the buy-out of Sauber was in negotiation came news that King has had £1.8 million of his assets frozen by a court in Jersey because of an unpaid debt.

So far as I can make out, Russell King tried to buy Sauber on promises. Sauber has a factory, a history and, above all, a spotless reputation. It would appear that King hoped to secure agreement and then hoped to attract sponsors.

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