Mercedes F1 boss Toto Wolff and Manchester United bidder Jim Ratcliffe share $92 million payout even as team’s ad value tumbles
Mercedes Benz’s billionaire F1 chief Toto Wolff and fellow billionaire Man Utd bidder Jim Ratcliffe will take big cuts of the F1 team's £75 million ($92 million) dividend, despite the team’s waning on-track performance severely hurting the value of its TV coverage.
In an annual financial report filed Monday, Mercedes Benz-AMG Petronas's chief Wolff said it had confirmed the dividend to its shareholders in March. It represents a steep rise on a £55 million ($67.5 million) dividend paid out in 2022.
For years Mercedes, led by Wolff—who is also a director at the F1 team—dominated the F1 track.
The team won eight constructors’ championships in a row between 2014 and 2021, while its main driver Lewis Hamilton won the drivers’ world championship six times in that period.
But their fortunes have shifted since a pivotal race in 2021, where Red Bull driver Max Verstappen took the championship on the final lap of the season’s last race in highly controversial circumstances. Verstappen and Red Bull have gone on to dominate the circuit in the seasons since.
Falling TV coverage hits advertising
While 2022 was a less fortunate year on the track, with the team finishing third and Hamilton placing sixth, Mercedes Benz-AMG Petronas delivered a solid financial performance off it.
The group increased revenues by 24% to nearly £474.6 million ($583 million), while profits jumped more than 30% to £89.7 million ($110 million).
However, Mercedes’ waning fortunes in 2022 meant it gave up vital TV coverage as media attention turned to a new rivalry between Red Bull and Ferrari.
Mercedes Benz-AMG Petronas received a 15% share of F1 TV coverage in 2022, a significant drop from 23.6% during its white-knuckle 2021 season, according to its previous financial report. This dip reduced the team’s Advertising Value Equivalent (AVE) by £654 million ($803 million) to £5.8 billion ($7.2 billion).
AVE isn’t a tangible financial measure but instead seeks to quantify how much it might cost to buy ads in a similar context for TV. A drop in value could hurt Mercedes’ future appeal to sponsors and accordingly future revenues.
The team didn’t immediately respond to Fortune’s request for comment on how falling advertisement value might affect future turnover.
Instead, Wolff attributed its improved financial performance to the wider commercial growth of F1, which has had something of a renaissance since the Netflix series Drive to Survive premiered in 2019. Its Applied Science division and sponsorships also drove revenue, Wolff said.
Ratcliffe’s petrochemical firm INEOS, which also owns a cycling team and French soccer club OSG Nice, is a one-third owner in Mercedes alongside Wolff and Mercedes Benz-AG.
The INEOS founder is in the middle of a lengthy bidding war with Sheikh Jassim’s Qatari group to take over Manchester United Football Club from the Glazer family.
Mercedes’ Hamilton was briefly linked with the bid as part of a Ratcliffe-led consortium; however, the Independent reported in February that this was not yet the case.
“I hope in the future to do something with Jim and build with him. I don’t know when that will be or what that will be,” Hamilton told the paper.
“But I do want to get more and more involved in teams because I really do believe in Black ownership and Black equity, because there is a real lack of that in sport.”
This story was originally featured on Fortune.com
