Aston Martin: PIF and Geely billionaire’s shares shift after investment
The proportion of shares Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF) and Chinese billionaire Shufu Li’s hold in luxury car brand Aston Martin has changed following a major shares issue.
In March Yew Tree Consortium, which is led by chairman Lawrence Stroll, placed 75 million additional shares in the London-listed business.
As a result, both the value of the shareholdings of the PIF and Li has been altered but they still hold the same number of shares.
The PIF become the Warwickshire-headquartered company’s second-largest shareholder in July 2022 when it took a 16.7 per cent stake in a move valued at £78m at the time.
Aston Martin’s share price surged by 20 per cent when the news was announced to 170p.
But the company’s shares are currently changing hands for around 79p now, down from 141p a year now and 107p at the start of 2025.
In a new filing with the London Stock Exchange, the PIF’s holdings in Aston Martin has gone from 18 per cent to 16.6 per cent.
It had increased its stake in the brand to more than 20 per cent in November 2023.
In a separate move Chinese billionaire Shufu Li, who is the founder and chairman of Volvo owner Geely, has also seen the percentage of Aston Martin he owns go from 15.2 per cent to 14 per cent.
Li has been a shareholder in the company since September 2022.
Lawrence Stroll eyeing Aston Martin takeover
Shares in Aston Martin have rallied in recent days ahead of President Donald Trump announcing a trade deal with the UK.
The FTSE 250 company had slashed its US car exports at the end of April in response to the tariff uncertainty.
But Trump announced a marginal scale down, reducing the automaker levies to ten per cent on 100,000 cars.
At the end of March, Aston Martin became at risk of a takeover from Canadian billionaire Lawrence Stroll as he looked to increase his stake in the car manufacturer by £52.5m.
Stroll’s Yew Tree Consortium is attempting to acquire 75 million shares in Aston Martin which would bring his ownership of the car manufacturer to 33 per cent.
However, according to UK Takeover Code, any person who acquires more than 30 per cent of shares in a company is required to make an offer to buy out the remaining shareholders.
This could mean that Stroll, who is also executive chair of the firm, will be mandated to take over the last remaining car manufacturer on British markets.
Earlier that month, CityAM reported that Aston Martin is planning to pay its top bosses more than its fellow FTSE 250 companies after having struggled to attract talent in recent years.
The luxury car maker is to increase the bonus opportunities for its chief executive and chief financial officer from 200 per cent to 250 per cent of their salaries.
Aston Martin said that “while this would position annual bonus ahead of UK FTSE 250 practice, it would take our annual bonus policy to median within our identified global luxury peer group and lower quartile against our automotive peers”.
The company admitted to having struggled to recruit talent “due to the lack of competitiveness of our reward packages” under its most recent remuneration policy.