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'SLEC Holdings Ltd.' is a holding company which owns a myriad of companies responsible for the management of the commercial side of Formula One (see right). The most important of the F1 companies are Formula One Holdings, Formula One Administration and Formula One Management.
SLEC is owned by Alpha Prema UK Limited which is itself owned by CVC Capital Partners and the Ecclestone family (the exact shareholding is secret, but CVC owns the majority).

Contents

Background

References

Background

SLEC was formed by Bernie Ecclestone (named after his wife SLavica ECclestone).
SLEC was owned 25% by the family of Bernie Ecclestone (through Bambino Holdings) and 75% by Kirch, the German media group. Due to the agreement associated with their shareholding SLEC was controlled by Kirch, who hence controlled the board of Formula One Holdings (FOH). Due to huge losses and massive expenditure, Kirch's creditors put the company into receivership in 2002. These banks dismantled the group. Kirch's share of SLEC was retained by Bayerische Landesbank, JP Morgan Chase and Lehman Brothers (through Speed Investments).
Before they could exercise their rights as shareholders they had to seek clearance from the European Commission. In the intervening period Ecclestone instituted changes in the boards of SLEC, FOH, Formula One Administration and Formula One Management which in effect put Bambino Holdings in control of those companies.
In mid-November 2004, the three banks sued Ecclestone for more control over the sport, prompting speculation that Ecclestone might altogether lose the control he has maintained for more than thirty years. A two-day hearing began on November 23, but after the proceedings had ended the following day, Justice Andrew Park announced his intention to reserve ruling for several weeks. On December 6, 2004, Park read his verdict, stating that "In [his] judgment it is clear that Speed's contentions are correct and [he] should therefore make the declarations which it requests" [1]. However, Ecclestone insisted that the verdict - seen almost universally as a legal blow to his control of Formula One - would mean "nothing at all" [2]. He stated his intention to appeal the decision.
The following day, at a meeting of team bosses at Heathrow Airport in London, Ecclestone offered the teams a total of £260,000,000 over three years in return for unanimous renewal of the Concorde Agreement, which expires in 2008 [3]. Weeks later, Gerhard Gibkowsky, a board member of Bayerische Landesbank and the chairman of SLEC, stated that the banks had no intention to remove Ecclestone from his position of control [4].
In November 2005 CVC Capital Partners announced it was to acquire the 25% and 48% shares of Bambino and Bayerische Landesbank in SLEC and acquired the shares of JP Morgan Chase in December 2005. This deal was given approval by the European Commission on March 21 2006 and finalised on March 28. Ecclestone used the proceeds of the sale of Bambino Holdings' share to invest in Alpha Prema to give the Ecclestone family an unspecified stake in Alpha Prema. [5]
On March 30 2006 CVC purchased the 14,1% share of SLEC held by Lehman Brothers to give Alpha Prema full control of the Formula One Group.

References

★ www.olswang.com: Formula One – Just a one-man show? (accessed 30/07/05)

★ www.businessweek.com: "Group takes controlling F1 stake"