Racing Point, the company set up by Lawrence Stroll and his investment partners to acquire the Force India Formula 1 team, paid a total of £90 million ($118m) for the outfit, new documents reveal.
A report by administrators FRP Advisory has given full details on the sale in light of High Court action brought by Russian company Uralkali, which claims its higher bid should have been chosen.
However FRP states that it chose Racing Point's bid because it was the only one, out of more than "20 expressions of interest", which wanted to rescue the team as a going concern, rather than simply purchasing its assets and F1 entry.
Although that later failed after it became apparent that the necessary agreement from multiple India-based banks wouldn't arrive in time and the team would have been forced to close.
FRP therefore went ahead with Racing Point's pre-agreed 'fall-back' plan, which tabled a £90m ($118m) bid for the assets and entry.
Uralkali's legal preceedings centre on this fact as it claims the bidding process should have been reopened once it became apparent that Racing Point's attempt to rescue the team as going concern was set to fail.
The documents also reveal that at the time the team fell into administration, it had just £240,000 ($312,000) in the bank and would not have been able to pay its July salaries had sponsor BWT not loaned the team £5m ($6.5m).
That loan was swiftly repaid by Racing Point, which loaned Force India £15m ($19.5m) to allow it to continue racing in 2018.
FRP insists it needed to take quick action to ensure the future of the team was safe: "[FRP] took into account the importance of retaining key staff, the fact that staff were shortly to return from their summer holidays, with the upcoming race in Belgium due to take place a few days after their return [so FRP] took a commercial decision to avoid the risk of a significant loss in the value of the business and assets."
