Neno wrote:dren wrote:How much is Lotus in debt to Genii? $200mil? The way they are set-up, it's Genii who takes the hit. Maldonado brings in $35mil, but that is just a drop in the bucket compared to a budget needed for an entire year, even for a team at the back of the grid. Genii's best bet at this point is to let Lotus default, and then sell the team. I don't know if Genii can afford to do that. Maybe they reduce staff and fund the team at a minimum in hopes money comes in over 2014. I even heard Lotus doesn't have an official engine deal yet.
I'll be surprised if they go racing next year at this point.
What?
Genii owns the team, I mean factory at Enstone. They only carrying name Lotus for some reason (even i dont know why because they dont have Lotus sponsorship or make profit from that), instead calling themself Genii Team. Genii as firm is in debt because they dont have stable financial situation (spending more then they can earn). Only way to surive and have bright future is if they have good sponsorship, preferring main sponsor which they dont have. In past Renault when it owned this factory in Enstone, it had Mildseven for main sponsor and later ING Group.
I thought I read somewhere that Genii holds the team and loans the team money, so the team is in debt to Genii.
http://www.formula1.com/news/interviews ... 15015.html
Q: What’s your take on his reasons for leaving? He always said that he loves the environment at Lotus. Ferrari is obviously tempting, but it also comes with a price tag that reads Alonso…
EB: Well, it is public knowledge by now that we’ve been late in paying him, and he got upset. To manage the cash flow - and I don’t mean the money itself or the budget we have, which is guaranteed by Genii (or at least most of it as we don’t have the revenue stream to allow us to live independently from Genii) - this cash-flow is an issue if you have fixed costs and want to keep up the development level. You have to decide where you want to spend your money. Our suppliers and key people who develop the car were our priority - maybe not Kimi. But Kimi was in a similar position last year and it was all settled by the end of the year. And Genii had the plan to do the same this year.
Q: There is considerable speculation right now about Lotus’s financial situation - rumours that the team is in deep water with significant debts. What is the reality?
EB: Look at some of the other teams: at Red Bull or Mercedes, those companies are sponsoring the teams. Genii has a different strategy: they loan the money. It is part of the strategy that partners join the team and Genii will get back their investment. Seventy-five percent of the debt Lotus has comes from Genii. They could write it off tomorrow by saying this money is a sponsorship - and then our debt would be drastically reduced. Our normal debt is similar to most of the other teams. Take Mercedes for example: they could say that the money they invest in Brackley is only a loan - then the debt of the team would be seriously higher than ours.