Aston Martin issues another profit warning and sells F1 naming rights for £50m

Aston Martin has warned that its losses will be worse than expected and sold its permanent naming rights to its Formula One team, as the struggling British carmaker battles to stabilise its finances.The luxury carmaker, majority-owned by the Canadian billionaire Lawrence Stroll, said its earnings for 2025 would be worse than City forecasts, its fifth profit warning since September 2024.Analysts had been expecting the struggling company to post a loss of £184m at its annual results, due to be published next Wednesday.Aston Martin delivered nearly 10% fewer cars last year than in 2024 – 5,448 in total – as US trade tariffs battered sales and the company fell short on lucrative special edition deliveries. Shares fell as much as 4% on Friday morning before recovering some ground, down 2%.Since taking control in 2020, Stroll has tried to turn around the manufacturer, which is best known for featuring in the James Bond franchise, by introducing new models and repeatedly raising cash.But the succession of profit warnings has battered the company’s shares, which have lost about half their value over the past year.Cash reserves are about £250m, roughly stable compared with six months ago but down from £360m at the start of 2025. The carmaker’s debt pile has also soared 70% since the start of 2024.In a fresh attempt to shore up its balance sheet, Aston Martin will permanently sell the right to use its name in Formula One to its own F1 team for £50m, it said on Friday. The team is operated by AMR GP Holdings, a separate company also controlled by Stroll – meaning the deal is effectively an extra injection of funds from the owner.Because the billionaire, who owns 32% of the carmaker, sits on both sides of the deal, it requires approval from shareholders. However, that appears to be a formality; investors representing just over half of the company, including Stroll’s investment vehicle, plus Geely and Mercedes-Benz, have already committed to vote in favour.Aston Martin did a similar deal in 2024 that gave the F1 team naming rights until 2055.Despite the gloom, the company said on Friday that about 500 of its new Valhalla models would be delivered in 2026 in a boost for its prospect. Priced at £850,000 each, only 999 will ever be made. More than half have already been sold.It is the latest twist in a painful five-year turnaround marked by perennial heavy losses, a dealer inventory crisis and persistent production challenges. Donald Trump’s US tariff war, launched last year, compounded its difficulties.Trump imposed a 25% tariff on car imports last April, adding significant costs to Aston Martin’s cars in one of its key markets. A subsequent UK-US tariff agreement, struck in May 2025, capped duties on 100,000 British-made cars at 10% from the end of June, offering some relief.In October, Aston Martin slashed £300m from its investment plans and cut spending on developing new cars, citing the impact of tariffs and extremely subdued Chinese demand.It also called for “more proactive support” from British ministers at the time, in the face of tariffs, urging them to “protect the interests of small-volume manufacturers, like Aston Martin, who provide thousands of jobs”.