Bernie Ecclestone and Germany's Bayerische Landesbank sold their controlling stake in the Formula One motor racing series last week. However, the sport's powerful car manufacturing teams said they would not yet abandon their plans to set up a rival series.
SLEC, the vehicle that holds the commercial rights to F1, sold the stake to CVC Capital Partners, the private equity group, for a sum understood to be about $1 billion (€850 million).
The deal has been negotiated in spite of a deep split between Mr Ecclestone and the participating teams in F1 over revenue sharing.
Mr Ecclestone has come under attack from the teams over the past several years for diverting the majority of the more than $600 million (about €510 million) a year earned from TV and other commercial rights to F1's promotional companies, while allowing several cash-starved teams to collapse or be taken over.
He has already offered to increase the teams' share but, so far, this has not been accepted.
In spite of last night's announcement of the deal, the Grand Prix Manufacturers Association, representing the sport's most powerful teams, said it would continue with plans to launch a rival series to F1 in 2008, pending talks with CVC to establish its intentions.
CVC, which has a fully underwritten debt package in place to fund the deal, will make the investment from its €€6 billion buy-out fund, the biggest raised by a European private equity group.
CVC will own 75 per cent of Alpha Prema, the vehicle that in turn owns 71.7 per cent of F1.
- FT Service