There were reports earlier this year that tech giant Apple was in discussions to possibly acquire the high-end UK car manufacturer McLaren. That went unconfirmed at the time.
Now, following the recent forced removal of McLaren Technology Group head Ron Dennis (owing to a dispute over a Chinese takeover bid backed by Dennis, the rumors say), the firm’s CEO Mike Flewitt has publicly revealed that there have been a number of interested parties in recent times, including Apple.
Apparently, though, Apple never made a bid, but rather simply visited and held talks with execs on the matter.
Flewitt’s exact words (as quoted by Reuters) were: “There wasn’t a bid from Apple. They visited. We talked. We talked about what they did. We talked about what we did. They toured. It never matured to a definitive proposition.”
Even if it had, the company’s shareholders are apparently not interested in reducing their stakes, according to Flewitt — so it may well be that nothing would have come of it.
With the amount of turmoil that’s been reported about Apple’s electric car effort, the lack of a bid shouldn’t be surprising. As we reported previously, the company seems to have completely rethought its plans on the matter and is now focusing on a (probably) much more viable business plan that doesn’t involve building cars. For more on that, see: “Is Apple’s Project Titan On Life Support? Being Totally Revamped?” and “Apple Car Dies.”
Photo by Axion23 (CC BY 2.0 license)
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