Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund will acquire a 16.7 per cent stake through a £78m share placement, giving it two board seats. Aston will also launch a £575m rights issue, with PIF, major shareholder Mercedes-Benz, and owner Lawrence Stroll’s Yew Tree consortium all agreeing to take up their rights. In total, Yew Tree, Mercedes and PIF will invest £335m through the rights issue or new shares, Aston said. This leaves other investors to pay up to £318m through the rights issue, which has been fully taken up. About half of the money will be used to pay down debt, which stood at £957m at the end of March. The company also rejected a rival investment offer of £1.3bn from China’s Geely and Aston’s former owners, Italian investment group Investindustrial, it said on Friday. The pair would have injected £203m of new equity capital, making them the largest shareholder, although they were below the 30 per cent threshold at which a formal takeover would be required to be launched. Their proposal, received by Aston last week, also included a £1.1 billion rights issue. Aston rejected the proposal, which it said did not present an attractive financing option, and said it did not need further discussions. Aston also said on Friday that car sales in the first half were lower than expected. It sold 2,676 vehicles in six months, although it still aims to produce 6,600 in total this year. The company also pushed back the date it would start generating cash from 2023 to 2024.
