Aston Martin executive chairman Lawrence Stroll and his Yew Tree investment group have taken their shareholding in the firm to 28.29% - up from around 19% earlier this year - following a series of investments totalling around £50m in recent months, in an apparent bid to block Chinese car maker Geely from making an aggressive takeover bid.
The latest round of purchases from the Yew Tree consortium – which is led by Stroll but includes JCB’s Lord Anthony Bamford, Hong Kong billionaire Silas Chou, telecomms billionaire John McCaw, and biotech billionaire Ernesto Bertarelli – comes at a time that the share price in the financially beleaguered British sports car maker has recovered from a low of 90p in November to around £1.70 today. That values Aston Martin at £1.2bn, down from £4bn when it listed in 2018.
If Yew Tree’s stake were to reach 29.99%