Haas sponsor saga takes fresh twist as Rich Energy is renamed

Storey had been in dispute with shareholders of the company since last Wednesday, when he announced on Twitter that the sponsorship with the Haas F1 team had been terminated. Those shareholders subsequently stated that the deal is ongoing, and have been trying to wrestle control from Storey, who had continued to insist via the Rich Energy Twitter feed that he was still in charge and could not be removed.

However, Storey confirmed his departure on the Rich Energy via Twitter today, noting: “William Storey founder of @rich_energy has sold his majority stake in the legal entity of Rich Energy limited. This decision was reluctantly reached due to the duplicitous conduct of minority stakeholders. To quote @Schwarzenegger he will be back!”

Information filed at Companies House today confirmed that Storey’s appointment as a director had been terminated, as has that of his Croatian colleague Zoran Terzic. In addition, Storey is no longer “a person with significant control”.

Storey has been replaced in that role by Matthew Kell, who has also been appointed a director. Documents say that Kell holds more than 75% of the shares of the company, “directly or indirectly”.

The registered address of Rich Energy was originally changed earlier today from Storey’s Richmond base to a London company called The BDG Group. However, shortly afterwards a second piece of paperwork was logged which omitted the The BDG Group name, while retaining the same Notting Hill address.

The BDG Group’s involvement in Rich/Lightning Volt is unclear. However, the company’s website says that as the “UK’s leading unlicensed Insolvency Practitioners we offer a genuine alternative to our clients which will give you a clean bill of health going forwards, your reputation will be intact, and we’ll deal with all the outstanding issues.”