Fernandes wants to sell the Caterham Group as a whole, meaning the sale includes Caterham’s car-building arm, its Formula 1 team, an engineering division called Caterham Technology and Innovations as well as Caterham Composite. All of the company’s assets are also included in the sale.
Malaysian newspaper The Edge claims Fernandes is hoping wealthy businessmen in the Middle East will be interested in taking over the company.
Caterham has suffered several setbacks in the past few years. Once a niche British automaker, the company’s car-building arm was set to become a serious global player by launching a mid-engined sports car jointly-developed with Renault’s reborn Alpine division and two performance-focused models based on the Renault Clio hatchback and Captur crossover, respectively. Disagreements over the sports car’s design recently ended the alliance and consequently canceled the other two models, leaving Caterham on its own to finish the development and without a quick way to boost its annual sales with volume models.
Additionally, the group’s under-performing Formula 1 team appears to be headed for the chopping block as Fernandes has repeatedly warned he would stop funding the team if its results didn’t improve. The team didn’t score a single point in the 2012 and 2013 seasons, and it has yet to score in the first five races of the 2014 season.
Fernandes has not confirmed his intentions to sell the company.
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