Group Lotus takeover clarification

Thanks to feedback from Alan Perry, Chris Conner and Michael Stucker, we are able to provide some clarifications to our earlier report of the Group Lotus takeover.

It has been noted that Team Lotus (now Team Pacific Lotus) is a separate entity from Group Lotus. This means that the sale has no direct impact on Lotus in F1, although it could benefit the F1 efforts as well, whether through a "halo effect" or through some sort of sponsorship or financial arrangement between the two companies.

The new owner of Group Lotus, 21 Invest, is a joint investment firm owned by the Benetton and Bonomi families of Italy. The company was previously owned by the struggling Bugatti, and prior to that by General Motors.

21 Invest paid #36M for 985-employee-company, which manufactures sports cars as well as having a substantial engineering consultancy practise. In 1994, Lotus Group's first profitable year in a long time, it earned a net profit of #2M on revenues of #51M.

The name "Team Lotus", however, is owned by Pacific F1, and Group Lotus has no direct rights to the name.