LONDON, (Reuters) – Bernie Ecclestone’s eye for a deal has made him a fortune and turned Formula One motor racing into a global money-spinner, but a bribery trial threatens to end his long reign as the head of the business.
Ecclestone, who is 83, has been ordered to stand trial in Germany in a case relating to the sale of a stake in Formula One in 2005-06. He has denied wrongdoing in a complex case that has seen a German banker jailed for tax evasion.
Despite his advanced age, the former car salesman remains central to the commercial operations of a sport followed by millions of fans around the world and that considered a flotation on the stock market in Singapore in 2012.
Ecclestone has long dismissed talk of retirement but has acknowledged that a conviction in Germany would force him out, saying with typical bluntness that he couldn’t run the business from jail.
Leading F1 shareholder CVC said in November that Ecclestone would be fired if he was found guilty of wrongdoing.
LIFETIME IN RACING
Ecclestone has been immersed in motor racing since moving into team management after failing to make it as a driver in the 1950s.
He gained control of the commercial rights to the sport from the 1970s onwards, profiting from a growing TV market and expansion into emerging markets.
After years as Formula One’s public face, racing fans ask him to pose for photographs and sign autographs when he appears at race tracks alongside drivers like German world champion Sebastian Vettel and Briton Lewis Hamilton.
Interviews and conversations, at least around the grey paddock bus with blacked-out windows that serves as his control centre during the European races, tend to be quick and to the point.
Though there is no time for small talk or hesitation, Ecclestone always provides a headline.
He has had the haunting theme tune to ‘The Good, the Bad and the Ugly’ as the ringtone on his mobile phone for some years now.
Ennio Morricone’s score for the classic 1960s Italian Spaghetti Western is just right for Formula One’s stone faced “Little Big Man” and his endless quest for a few dollars more.
In the last decade that quest has taken Formula One to lucrative new markets in Abu Dhabi, Bahrain, China, India, South Korea and Singapore at the expense of older venues in Europe.
Known simply as Bernie, or just the ‘Mr E’ written on the car pass that allows his sleek Mercedes limousine access to the F1 paddock inner sanctum, the British billionaire is rarely out of the news.
The money has come rolling in, multiplied by amazing deals that have seen him sell Formula One several times over while retaining a tight grip on the top job.
PITLANE DICTATOR
Ecclestone married for a third time in 2012 to Fabiana Flosi, a Brazilian more than 40 years his junior.
The Briton has a private jet and one of the finest collections of classic racing cars in the world at his Biggin Hill airfield in south London but, apart from throwing the sort of parties that impress even the A-list celebrities attracted to the Monaco Grand Prix, is not personally ostentatious.
He likes a game of backgammon with young and old friends, including world champion Vettel, and a quiet night in.
His two socialite daughters from his second marriage often feature in the gossip columns of British newspapers, drawing criticism for their lavish lifestyles in a time of austerity.
For Ecclestone himself, money, as he has explained to many an interviewer over the years, is merely his way of keeping the score.
Ecclestone has a reputation for being uncompromising and obsessively neat. The trucks in the paddock have to be lined up with mathematical precision and in showroom condition. By his own admission he is a dictator – a man who does a deal on a handshake, has a fondness for the office shredder and an aversion to email and written contracts.
He surrounds himself with a small group of deeply loyal and well-remunerated employees, many of them dating back to the days when he owned the Brabham team in the 1970s and 80s, who know exactly what makes him tick.
Ecclestone, 83, was charged last July with bribing former German banker Gerhard Gribkowsky to smooth the sale of a stake in Formula One to private equity firm CVC eight years ago.
“Under current planning, the main trial should start in late April,” the Munich court said in a statement yesterday. If convicted, Ecclestone could be sentenced to up to 10 years in jail.
Formula One said that Ecclestone would remain in day-to-day charge of running the business, which has an annual turnover of around $1.5 billion, but he had stepped down as a director pending the outcome of the trial.
Ecclestone will also face tighter supervision from a Formula One board that includes well known businessmen including Nestle chairman Peter Brabeck and WPP chief executive Martin Sorrell.
“The approval and signing of significant contracts and other material business arrangements shall now be the responsibility of the Chairman, Peter Brabeck, and Deputy Chairman, Donald Mackenzie,” Formula One said in a statement.
Ecclestone has denied wrongdoing and said he will fight to clear his name.
“Mr Ecclestone has reassured the Board that he is innocent of the charges and intends to vigorously defend the case,” the Formula One statement added.
CVC co-founder Mackenzie has previously said Ecclestone would be fired if he were found guilty of wrongdoing. CVC remains the largest shareholder in Formula One with a stake of around 35 percent.
Ecclestone already faces a $100 million damages claim in a civil lawsuit at the London High Court over claims he steered the sale to CVC to ensure he stayed on as chief executive.
