Translated material
Apple begins negotiations to take over McLaren
Apple started talks a few months ago with British automaker McLaren Technology Group, which makes supercars and owns a Formula One team. Apple is going to buy the company entirely, or invest in it. It is reported by The Financial Times, citing its sources.
The newspaper estimates the approximate cost of McLaren at 1.3-1.9 billion dollars. According to FT sources, Apple is willing to pay this amount for development centers, engineers and a set of patents.
Apple's interest in the McLaren FT is explained by the fact that the company intends to develop its own unmanned electric car. The American company never publicly announced such a project, but the media wrote a lot about it. In September 2016, it became known that mass layoffs began in the Apple department that worked on the electric car .
Apple declined to comment on the deal. McLaren, after the release of the article in the FT , said that the information about the purchase is not true.
The purchase of McLaren could be Apple's biggest takeover since its $3 billion acquisition of headphone maker Beats in 2014. (English.)
- McLaren produced 1,654 supercars in 2015. Each of them cost about a million dollars. At the same time, the company remained at a loss, which amounted to about $30 million.
- Many large companies are now working on electric and self-driving cars. Tesla Motors and Google are among them.