How Aston Martin’s latest financing sparked a bondholder revolt
Luxury car maker’s controversial deal with BlackRock-owned credit firm HPS set up high-stakes legal battle
By mid-July, creditors owed more than £1.3bn by Aston Martin were watching the price of their bonds fall steadily as the company’s finances deteriorated. What gave them comfort, however, was that their debt was secured on the carmaker’s most valuable assets.
On July 22 that changed. James Bond’s favoured automobile company struck a surprise deal with BlackRock-owned private credit firm HPS, borrowing up to £550mn in exchange for pledging its most valuable assets to the new lender. The assets were removed from existing creditors’ reach in the process.
Now Aston Martin and a group including some of Europe’s most aggressive credit hedge funds are hurtling towards high-stakes litigation. Last week members of a creditor group owed £1.3bn filed for discovery against HPS and other parties, seeking documentation and testimony to be used in “a forthcoming foreign proceeding in England”.
The HPS deal led to the carmaker’s bonds sinking further while credit ratings were cut deeper into junk territory. The deal — described by one creditor as an “aggressive asset strip” — has pitted the struggling carmaker against its bondholders.
Creditors — including London-based hedge funds Arini Capital Management and Tresidor Investment Management — have called the HPS transaction “a value-destructive liability management exercise”. The two funds this week filed for discovery in New York, in preparation for the legal battle, seeking information from HPS, US branding giant Absolute Brands as well as Moelis and Lazard, advisers to the private credit firm.
“Even the most aggressive private equity guys in the US don’t do these things,” said one Aston Martin bondholder.
Prior to Aston Martin’s agreement with HPS, existing creditors had also offered the carmaker new financing. The company’s readiness to strike the deal with HPS has not only frustrated the bondholders, who were cut out of the deal, but also spooked Aston Martin’s employees about the long-term prospects of the group, according to people familiar with the situation.
The UK-listed carmaker is backed by Canadian billionaire and chair Lawrence Stroll, China’s Geely and Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, but “the fact that Aston Martin has had to turn to HPS for financing indicates that none of its current major shareholders are willing to put in more capital”, said Scott Sherwood, an independent analyst of luxury car brands.
“Aston Martin has once again done just enough to stay alive — or, in other words, ‘to die another day’,” he added.
Chief executive Adrian Hallmark has defended the deal as giving the company “additional resilience and further flexibility to execute our current and future product plans”.
Under the HPS deal, the company borrowed £450mn and has the option to draw down a further £100mn in the future.
Authentic Brands, which owns brands ranging from Brooks Brothers to the David Beckham brand rights, also participated in the financing, providing £100mn of the initial £450mn, according to people familiar with the matter. HPS holds a minority stake in Authentic Brands.
While Aston Martin hinted that the transaction would weaken the pool of collateral that underpinned existing creditors, it has repeatedly refused to tell bondholders what assets have been moved from their reach.
Despite the company’s silence, filings on the UK’s trademark register have since revealed that Aston Martin’s most valuable branding and naming rights have been transferred to a Cayman Islands entity called Silverco — a new “unrestricted” subsidiary that now secures HPS’s lending.
Just under 200 trademarks including the words “Aston Martin”, the winged Aston Martin logo, and the shape and design of the DB6, the model used as James Bond’s car in the 1964 movie Goldfinger, have been pledged as part of the HPS deal.
The remaining £100mn of its new facility, to be provided by the private credit firm, can be drawn if Aston Martin transfers a 50.1 per cent stake in its non-automotive IP to Authentic Brands.
For those who know Aston Martin, its latest dash for cash may feel familiar, with the century-old company having gone through seven bankruptcies in the past.
Since floating on the London Stock Exchange in 2018, at a valuation of more than £4bn, the company has sought continuous equity injections, with its share price plummeting from almost £20 to 33p. The carmaker now has a market capitalisation of £350mn. Its debt pile, meanwhile, has grown to more than £1.5bn.
Stroll first gained partial control of the carmaker when he led one such emergency financing in 2020, acquiring an initial 16.7 per cent stake that has since risen to 33 per cent.
Stroll convinced Hallmark, the former chief executive of Bentley, to take over the car company in 2024 but even under new leadership its finances failed to stabilise. Hit by weak China demand and US tariffs, Aston Martin reported operating losses for six straight quarters and burned through nearly £200mn in cash during the first six months of this year despite rising revenue.
To plug another shortfall, the company turned to HPS.
Grappling with why their own offer of new money was rejected in favour of the HPS offer, creditors have begun scrutinising the relationship between the wider Aston Martin group and the private credit firm.
HPS, a $200bn US direct lending giant that was acquired by BlackRock last year, knows the Aston Martin brand and Stroll well.
About two years before acquiring a stake in Aston Martin, Stroll had led the rescue of the Force India Formula 1 racing team that had fallen into administration for £90mn. Under Stroll’s consortium, the team was rechristened Racing Point and finished as high as fourth in 2020.
But for a man who made his name in luxury brands, “Racing Point” never felt apt. Once Stroll took a stake in the supercar maker, the Aston Martin name made its way into Formula 1. For the first time since 1960, the marque was back in British racing green colours.
In 2024, HPS struck a deal to acquire about 19 per cent of the privately owned Aston Martin F1 team. Although Stroll’s consortium owns less than half of Aston Martin Racing, he in effect controls the company.
Under the deal using a “hybrid” instrument, the equity came alongside $400mn in lending from HPS with an interest rate of 10 per cent.
Stroll has used the racing arm to prop up the carmaking business, which follows years of steep losses. The carmaker raised £50mn this year by selling the rights to use its name for the Formula 1 team to AMR.
The £50mn deal was criticised by existing shareholders who questioned the valuation as too low considering that Stroll and other AMR shareholders, such as HPS, had secured perpetual rights to use Aston Martin for the racing name.
Aston Martin said the additional liquidity would put the group in a stronger financial position and benefit all its stakeholders. “The board considered the available financing options and selected the one it judged to be in the best interests of the company,” it said.
BlackRock and HPS did not respond to requests for comment.
Debt investors will be closely watching the legal battle that is set to put not only the HPS financing under scrutiny but also Stroll’s dealings across the Aston Martin empire and measures used to keep the lossmaking carmaker alive.
“I did not think [Aston Martin] would be anywhere near this aggressive . . . They are pushing the limit on what’s considered acceptable behaviour,” said one distressed debt investor, who does not own Aston Martin bonds.