Who Owns McLaren?

McLaren is owned by two Gulf states. Companies House names The Government of the Kingdom of Bahrain outright as a person with significant control of McLaren Group Limited, holding more than 50% but less than 75% — one of the few entries anywhere on the register where a sovereign state is named as the controller. Abu Dhabi’s CYVN Holdings joined in 2025 and bought McLaren Automotive outright. Ownership verified 6 September 2026.

Who owns the Mclaren brand?

The group company is MCLAREN GROUP LIMITED (10720174), incorporated 11 April 2017 and registered at Woking, where McLaren has been based for decades.

It has two people with significant control:

• The Government of the Kingdom of Bahrain — more than 50% but less than 75% of shares and voting rights, with the right to appoint or remove directors, notified 11 April 2017
• McLaren Group Holdings Limited (14925259) — more than 25% but not more than 50% of shares and voting rights, notified 2 April 2025

Most sovereign wealth investment reaches the register through a fund or a chain of holding companies, if it appears at all. Here the state itself is the named controller, in plain words, through its investment arm Mumtalakat.

Parent company and ultimate owner

Bahrain’s holding dates from 2017 on the register but the relationship is older: Mumtalakat has been a McLaren shareholder since 2007 and increased its stake over time, reaching full ownership of the group in March 2024.

The second entry marks the arrival of Abu Dhabi. CYVN Holdings, an Abu Dhabi mobility investment vehicle, agreed a strategic deal in December 2024 and completed in April 2025, acquiring McLaren Automotive — the road car business — outright, together with a non-controlling stake in McLaren Racing.

In September 2025 Mumtalakat and CYVN together bought out the remaining minority shareholders in McLaren Racing, at a valuation reported above £3bn, taking full control of the Formula One team between them.

Brand owner vs operating company

McLaren is now two businesses with different owners, and conflating them is the main error made about it.

McLaren Automotive builds the road cars and belongs to CYVN. McLaren Racing runs the Formula One and IndyCar teams and is held by Mumtalakat and CYVN together. They share a name, a heritage and the Woking site, but they are no longer a single ownership.

The register carries the older lineage too: McLaren Services Limited (01967715), incorporated 2 December 1985, was formerly TAG McLaren Holdings Limited — the name from the era when the TAG group of the Ojjeh family was McLaren’s partner and part-owner.

When the ownership changed

McLaren was founded by the New Zealand driver Bruce McLaren in 1963. After his death in 1970 the team passed through several hands, with Ron Dennis taking control in 1981 and building the modern company, backed at various times by the TAG group and by Daimler.

Bahrain’s Mumtalakat invested in 2007. Mercedes-Benz’s parent sold its remaining stake in 2011, and Ron Dennis left in 2017 — the year McLaren Group Limited was incorporated and Bahrain’s PSC entry begins.

The pandemic forced a rescue: McLaren sold and leased back its Woking headquarters and raised emergency funding. Mumtalakat consolidated to full ownership in March 2024, and sold the car business to CYVN a year later.

Related brands in the same group

Mumtalakat is Bahrain’s sovereign wealth fund and holds stakes across aluminium, banking, healthcare and other sectors — companies that share an owner rather than a business. CYVN’s other holdings include a substantial stake in the Chinese electric carmaker NIO, which is why the McLaren purchase was read as an electrification play.

McLaren has no connection to McLaren Construction, McLaren Packaging or the other unrelated companies of that name on the register — several of them older than the car company, including a Glasgow building firm incorporated in 1929.

Sources and verification

Both PSC entries, their exact bands and dates, the Woking registration and the TAG McLaren previous name are from the Companies House register and can be checked directly.

The transaction detail — Mumtalakat’s 2024 consolidation, CYVN’s April 2025 purchase of McLaren Automotive, and the September 2025 buyout of the Racing minorities at a reported £3bn-plus — comes from the parties’ own announcements. Mumtalakat and CYVN file nothing at Companies House, so the split of economics between them is not register-verified. Companies House does not verify most filed information.