The latest rumours surrounding Group Lotus, which is a fully owned subsidiary of Proton, is that Genii Capital will be buying into the sportscar maker. Headed by Gerard Lopez, Genii Capital is the owner of the Renault F1 Team (Lotus Renault GP), which of course has Group Lotus as title sponsor.
Autosport reports that its high level sources have revealed that Lopez/Genii Capital has held advanced talks with Proton about taking a management and financial interest in Group Lotus, which could even go as far as Genii taking a majority stake!
It’s not common knowledge, but Genii and Proton have always been talking. “We have an agreement with Proton and are working a number of things with them, including opening certain geographies in terms of platform, like Russia for instance,” Gerard Lopez told this website in an interview early this year (read the interview in full here).
In that same interview, Lopez did not rule out getting involved in GL, even back then. “I think they have a good shareholder with Proton. For sure, that is something also that we will be looking at, but it’s not anything that is urgent. No, I wouldn’t rule it out. I never rule anything out,” he said.
When asked about the latest rumours by Autocar UK, Group Lotus CEO Dany Bahar did not deny it outright. “I can only say this: When we made the announcement about our involvement in Lotus Renault GP we made it clear that this was the start of a close relationship and this journey continues.”
As a recap, Group Lotus became title sponsor of the Genii owned Renault F1 Team late last year, leading to the F1 outfit racing in black/gold livery that recalls the Team Lotus of old. They signed a seven-year sponsorship deal, with Lotus having the option to take over 50% at some point in time.
Behind the F1 scenes, LRGP is now working on renaming the team to be just called ‘Lotus’, with Tony Fernandes’ Team Lotus changing names to Caterham, which is of course owned by the AirAsia boss.
Motorsports has always been one of Group Lotus CEO Dany Bahar’s main strategies to elevate the brand to fight the likes of Ferrari and Porsche, and it was never in doubt that they wanted to be more than just a name on the wing.
“Our way of doing things means that at the end of the project we would like to control it ourselves. It’s the same route – it starts somewhere and then you slowly take control. We would not be in for the long-term just to be a sponsor on the team,” Bahar said then.
So, if all these comes true, we could be seeing a marriage between Genii and Lotus – GL takes a stake in the team, and Genii buys into the carmaker. It remains to be seen if they live happily ever after, though.
