Aston Martin Revs Up For Â£150m Share Sale

By Mark Kleinman, City Editor

The luxury car-maker Aston Martin is finalising plans to raise £150m from shareholders‎ to fund an expansion aimed at returning it to profitability within three years.

Sky News understands that Aston Martin has received commitments from Investment Dar, a Kuwaiti entity, and Investindustrial, an Italian fund, to provide £50m between them to purchase new ordinary shares.

A further £50m will come from Investindustrial to buy preference shares, while Investment Dar is also being asked to commit an identical sum to that part of the deal.

‎Aston Martin, best-known for supplying cars used in the James Bond film franchise, is keen to wrap up the fundraising in the coming weeks but is not in urgent need of the cash, according to people close to the company.

The premium car marque's new chief executive, Andy Palmer, ‎is working to change the fortunes of the loss-making company, which has seen a steady decline in sales.

Once part of Ford's Premier Automotive Group, the company saw sales slide from 7300 in 2007 to around 4000 last year.

Last month, Standard & Poor's, the credit rating agency, downgraded Aston Martin to B-, a reflection of its belief that the company would "show continued substantial negative free operating cashflow in 2015 and 2016, due to sizeable capital expenditure".

At the Geneva Motor Show this month, Aston Martin launched the DBX, an all-electric crossover model aimed at competing aggressively with Bentley.

Mr Palmer said ‎in an interview this month that Aston Martin's status in the automotive industry was as "a standalone company, but with a benevolent sugar daddy".

Aston Martin had considered raising funds in the form of new debt but has decided to focus on an equity issue, sources said.

An Aston Martin spokeswoman declined to comment on the details of its fundraising.

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