In Confidence: Optimism at Aston Martin?

‘They were really just trying to make an offer to buy the company on the cheap, coming through the back door rather than going through the front door and paying a premium.’

So snarled Aston Martin’s executive chairman, largest single shareholder and multi-billionaire Lawrence Stroll when quizzed about why he rebuffed a £1.3 billion offer from Chinese conglomerate Geely and Italian investment group InvestIndustrial, to take over the company last summer.

Stroll can be hard to like because of his frequent refusal to countenance anything but his own narrative, but on this point he was right. By most measures Aston has been living in the danger zone for a few years now, but this time last year it was probably (and hopefully) at rock bottom; the predators had pounced just as it was forced into raising hundreds of millions to pay down sky-high debts previously secured at eye-watering interest rates.