Overview
- Former Liberty CEO Greg Maffei said Wednesday that he expects Formula 1 to be taken private within roughly two years, a prediction that immediately intensified market talk of a sale.
- Liberty announced last week that John Malone exchanged super‑voting stock and cut his voting power from about 48% to roughly 3%, a move that shifts decision authority to the company’s board.
- F1’s publicly traded vehicle has a market value near $28 billion and a take‑private transaction is being pitched around $30 billion, which means likely buyers would be sovereign wealth funds, private‑equity consortia, or a management/team‑backed bid.
- Any deal would face big practical hurdles including today’s higher financing costs and mandatory approval from the FIA, which owns F1 intellectual property and leases commercial rights to Liberty under a long‑term agreement.
- The potential sale caps a chapter that began with Liberty’s 2017 $8 billion purchase and continued with commercial growth, a near 300% rise in F1’s non‑voting stock and the 2025 addition of MotoGP, and it would reshape outcomes for shareholders, team principals and global race partners.