Lawrence Stroll: the petrolhead who saved Aston Martin
Lawrence Stroll made his fortune in fashion and has a passion for Ferraris and motorsport. When he saw the greatest luxury car brand in the world struggling, he swooped in.

The latest James Bond movie has been put on hold due to government restrictions related to Covid-19 (see page 40). Not so 007’s prize carmaker, Aston Martin, says The Sunday Times. The veteran British sportscar marque has spent the year being “shaken and stirred” by a new boss – the Canadian “petrolhead”, Lawrence Stroll.
Stroll, 61, has a large private collection of Ferraris and is a big mover in Formula One: in 2018, he led the buyout of the Force India team, renaming it Racing Point. Still, he wasn’t an obvious candidate to take the wheel at Aston, having made his name, and $2.6bn fortune, in fashion – notably as a driving force behind the Tommy Hilfiger and Michael Kors brands. Bond, of course, always offered “a blend of sartorial refinement and expensive sports cars”, says The Guardian. Aston’s shareholders are hoping Stroll can make the same combination work at the carmaker.
An archetypal billionaire
There’s certainly work to be done under the bonnet. Since it was founded in 1913 by Lionel Martin and Robert Bamford, “Aston has swallowed multiple fortunes and belched for more”. It has gone bust seven times and an “eighth was starting to look like a distinct possibility”, says The Sunday Times. Floated on the stockmarket two years ago by its Italian and Kuwaiti owners, pumped-up investors bought into the carmaker’s “second century plan”. But since then an extraordinary 97% of Aston’s market value has gone up in smoke.
Subscribe to MoneyWeek
Subscribe to MoneyWeek today and get your first six magazine issues absolutely FREE

Sign up to Money Morning
Don't miss the latest investment and personal finances news, market analysis, plus money-saving tips with our free twice-daily newsletter
Don't miss the latest investment and personal finances news, market analysis, plus money-saving tips with our free twice-daily newsletter
Stroll enjoys “an almost archetypal billionaire’s lifestyle”, says The Guardian. Based in Geneva, he has homes in London, Quebec and Mustique. Last year, he hosted a Great Gatsby-themed 60th birthday party in a villa on Capri – appearing, as Tatler noted, in an all-white suit. Growing up in Montreal, Stroll learned the business of luxury young. His father, the Quebec businessman Leo Strulovitch, brought the Pierre Cardin and Polo Ralph Lauren brands to Canada. At eight, Stroll was sweeping floors and packing boxes. At 17, his father handed him the Pierre Cardin licence for Canada and challenged him to grow the brand. By his early 20s, he was steaming into Europe with Ralph Lauren.
But Stroll made his real cash building up and selling two less established brands, says Fortune. In 1989, he teamed up with Silas Chou, a Hong Kong businessman, to buy Tommy Hilfiger, taking the company public in 1992 and later selling it to private equity. They followed that up by taking a £100m majority stake in Michael Kors in 2003, building up its leather-tote bag business and eventually listing it in 2011.
Stroll didn’t originally intend to buy into Aston, says The Sunday Times: at first, he was keener on getting it to work with his F1 team, which includes his 21-year-old racing-driver son, Lance. But when Aston made an emergency £536m cash-call in January, he was persuaded to jump in as the lead investor of a consortium including JCB owner Lord (Anthony) Bamford, pumping in £182m. Following a recent fundraising, in which Aston issued more than $1bn worth of bonds at a rate of 10.5%, he claims the company is “funded forever”.
The cardinal rule
Stroll’s broad-brush critique is that the previous management “over-promised and under-delivered”. Worse, they broke a cardinal rule of upmarket branding, pumping too many products into a struggling market. “The most important thing in luxury – it doesn’t matter if you are making handbags or automobiles – is you have to align demand with supply,” he says. “Actually, there always needs to be one less than the demand. It’s creating a pent-up demand to want the product.”
Stroll knows as much as a buyer himself, says Forbes: in 2013, he spent $27.5m on a vintage Ferrari. But he has now nailed his colours to a different mast. Aston, he told The Sunday Times, “is the greatest brand in the world for luxury automotive” – regardless of what a certain rival in the Italian town of Maranello might say.
Sign up for MoneyWeek's newsletters
Get the latest financial news, insights and expert analysis from our award-winning MoneyWeek team, to help you understand what really matters when it comes to your finances.
Jane writes profiles for MoneyWeek and is city editor of The Week. A former British Society of Magazine Editors editor of the year, she cut her teeth in journalism editing The Daily Telegraph’s Letters page and writing gossip for the London Evening Standard – while contributing to a kaleidoscopic range of business magazines including Personnel Today, Edge, Microscope, Computing, PC Business World, and Business & Finance.
She has edited corporate publications for accountants BDO, business psychologists YSC Consulting, and the law firm Stephenson Harwood – also enjoying a stint as a researcher for the due diligence department of a global risk advisory firm.
Her sole book to date, Stay or Go? (2016), rehearsed the arguments on both sides of the EU referendum.
She lives in north London, has a degree in modern history from Trinity College, Oxford, and is currently learning to play the drums.
-
Barclays begins paying up to £100 compensation to customers after banking outage
Barclays will pay up to £7.5 million in compensation to customers after its banking services were disrupted by an IT outage
By Daniel Hilton Published
-
Review: Shangri-La Paris – an ode to the world’s best food
Natasha Langan enjoys fine French and Chinese cuisine at the Shangri-La Paris
By Natasha Langan Published
-
Anne Wojcicki: the 'daring' 23andMe CEO who reached too far
Profile Anne Wojcicki dreamed of a revolution in personal genomics and medicine and set up 23andMe in 2006. Its collapse into bankruptcy provides a cautionary tale
By Jane Lewis Published
-
Why are energy bills so expensive in the UK?
Electricity bills in the UK are higher than in any comparable rich country. Some blame the net-zero zealotry of the government for that. What is really to blame for high energy bills?
By Simon Wilson Published
-
Will Putin invade Europe? Why investors know Russia is a paper tiger
Opinion Markets are right to ignore talk of Putin invading Europe, says Max King.
By Max King Published
-
Why French far-right leader Marine Le Pen has been banned from running for office
Marine Le Pen, presidential candidate and leader of France's right-wing National Rally party, has been barred from standing by the country's judges.
By Emily Hohler Published
-
Five years on: what did Covid cost us?
We’re still counting the costs of the global coronavirus pandemic – and governments’ responses. What did we learn?
By Simon Wilson Published
-
Remembering Eddie Jordan: Formula One’s inimitable maverick
Profile Eddie Jordan was one of the great characters of motor sport with a zeal for deal-making. His death leaves a hole in the sport that won’t be filled
By Jane Lewis Published
-
Will Trump force the Fed to lower interest rates?
Opinion Markets are ignoring the risk that Donald Trump forces the central bank into reckless interest rate cuts
By Cris Sholto Heaton Published
-
London can lure Brexit-fleeing banks back to UK – but the City must move quickly
Opinion Many banks fled to Paris in the wake of Brexit but are now in full-scale retreat. The City should move quickly to lure them back, says Matthew Lynn
By Matthew Lynn Published