Could McLaren go all-electric? UAE fund agrees to purchase 100% of the auto business to accelerate its growth

An Abu Dhabi-based investment firm has entered a non-binding agreement to buy 100% of McLaren’s automotive business, including a stake in the McLaren Group. The purchase goal is to bring additional capital to McLaren to accelerate its growth in vehicle development, particularly in electric vehicle technologies. If approved, could McLaren become the next supercar developer to go all-electric?

McLaren Automotive is a British luxury automaker specializing in super-fast sports cars and Formula One racing technologies. The company has been rooted in racing since it built the M1 back in the mid-1960s before spinning out as a standalone passenger vehicle manufacturer in 2010.

During its tenure in motorsports, McLaren has made a name for itself on roads and tracks by delivering sleek and speedy vehicles, particularly in the last six years. However, that lineup has consisted almost entirely of combustion vehicles, apart from the hybrid V6 Artura, which debuted in 2020.

This past April, Mumtalakat, the sovereign wealth fund of the Kingdom of Bahrain, wholly acquired McLaren Automotive and the McLaren Racing Formula One team. However, an additional government fund called CYVN Holdings has shown interest in the automaker and has signed on to take the reigns and hopefully bring McLaren into the all-electric era.

CYVN could help McLaren reach 2030 electric goals

As reported by Reuters, CYVN Holdings has entered into a non-binding agreement with Mumtalakat to purchase 100% McLaren Automotive. The agreement also includes a non-controlling stake in the larger McLaren Group umbrella.

Other details remain light at this point, but CYVN appears poised to shell out significant funding to grow McLaren’s passenger vehicle business and looks to do so by developing and selling all-electric models. Per a joint statement from CYVN and Mumtalakat:

This transformative investment by CYVN Holdings would bring access to additional capital, advanced engineering expertise and pioneering technology, particularly in the field of electric vehicles.

CYVN Holdings is currently the largest shareholder in Chinese EV automaker NIO Inc. ($NIO) and could bring some of its expertise in that segment to McLaren’s business model. CYVN stated that McLaren could benefit from the Abu-Dhabi-based firm’s “broad cross-industry experience.”

We will have to wait and see if the non-binding purchase agreement comes to fruition, but if it does, we will likely see all-electric McLaren models emerge. This is especially true since the British automaker previously vowed to pivot toward EVs and cease the development of ICE models by 2030, but that promise was made long before Mumtalakat or CYVN were involved.