Lawrence Stroll, 65, has skyrocketed in recent years, with the most recent estimate of his fortune ranking him 812th among the world’s richest users. According to Forbes, Stroll’s net worth in April 2024 was $3. 9 billion, up from $2. 4 billion in 2016.
Such a rise coincides with Stroll’s shrewd investments in motorsport, as he diversifies away from cars and fashion by leading the Racing Point consortium to own an F1 team before making a heavy investment in carmaker Aston Martin.
Lawrence Stroll’s fortune comes from the family business, specifically the fashion sector. Born in Montreal, Canada, on July 11, 1959, Stroll’s original surname is Strulovitch, from his father Leo’s roots in Russia. Father Léo was a fashion importer and First of all, he brought the Pierre Cardin logo to Canada.
Stroll learned from his father about his formative and teenage years, and on his 17th birthday, he was granted Pierre Cardin’s children’s clothing license for Canada. Stroll carried out his task with enthusiasm and spent more than the next decade creating the logo across Canada.
By a stroke of luck, 15 years later, Stroll would end up making an offer against Ralph Lauren for a car: the fashion designer’s logo was slowly gaining traction in the United States. Lauren would eventually win the car, but Stroll would leave with a new license, under the Poloco S. A. partnership, to take over Polo Ralph Lauren in Europe.
Silas Chou, a Hong Kong-based textile manufacturer who knew Stroll because his parents had worked together in the past, partnered with Stroll in 1989 when they founded Sportswear Holdings. Under Sportswear Holdings, the Ralph Lauren logo took off in Europe, allowing the duo to also make a significant investment in the Tommy Hilfiger logo.
While Chou was the largest shareholder, managing sourcing and distribution, Stroll assumed marketing and expansion roles and served on the board of directors from 1992 to 2002. In 2000, Sportswear Holdings had annual sales of $2 billion, compared to 25 million dollars from 11 years ago. previously, having also acquired Pepe Jeans in 1991 – Stroll served as CEO of the organization from 1993 to 1998.
Another successful project was the acquisition of the Michael Kors logo in 2003, with Sportswear Holdings investing $85 million to acquire 85% of the company. Stroll served as co-chairman of the company from 2003 to 2011. With the company’s initial public offering underway in 2011 on the New York Stock Exchange, the company’s price rose to $3. 6 billion. Sportswear Holdings sold the last of its stake in Michael Kors in 2014.
Now a billionaire, Stroll began investing money in his other passion: motorsports. Stroll’s interest in automobiles and racing cars was already evident when he purchased the Mont-Tremblant circuit in 2000.
With Belgian-born Claire-Anne Callens, Stroll welcomed two young people in the 1990s: Chloé and Lance. While his family was based in Geneva, Switzerland, Lance began his karting career in Canada and North America, where, in 2008, he won the Quebec Rookie of the Year award and the Driver of the Year award 12 months later.
His karting exploits impressed Ferrari, which enrolled him in its driving academy in 2010.
Stroll’s first motorsport race was held in 2014 as part of the Florida Winter Series, organized as a non-championship racing series through the Ferrari Driver Academy. Future F1 rivals Max Verstappen and Nicholas Latifi were also on the grid, with Stroll being the most productive result. a second-place finish at Homestead-Miami.
Stroll’s first race in the racing car championship in Italian F4, with his father’s influence helping him from the start as Lawrence invested heavily in Prema. According to unofficial figures reported at the time, Stroll had invested some £60 million in Prema to ensure his son had access to the most productive grooming devices and techniques.
After winning the Italian F4 championship in the first application, Lance progressed to F3, with Stroll finishing fifth overall in 2015. He would win the series in 2016, critics would say the frame was particularly weakened from the start. Champion Felix Rosenqvist was unable to participate after having spent 3 years in the category.
Rumors that Lawrence would invest a sum ($10 million) in the Williams F1 team were categorically denied when the Grove-based team recruited Lance as a progression driver, with the Canadian committing to a full-time racing role for the 2017 season.
Lance Stroll’s time at Williams would later be described as “torture” by his father, despite scoring 40 points in 2017, adding a podium finish in Azerbaijan.
Exploiting his immense wealth, Lawrence would assemble a consortium of interested parties (including Sportswear Holdings’ spouse Silas Chou) to shape “Racing Point” to bid for the embattled Force India team after Sergio Perez forced the Vijay-owned team Mallya to enter administration.
Racing Point would become the team’s new owner, with Stroll taking over from the middle of the 2018 season. Unsurprisingly, Lawrence made the decision to recruit his son Lance to join the team and kicked Esteban Ocon out of his booth for the 2019 season.
Just 18 months later, Stroll reopened his checkbook to lead the Yew Tree Investments consortium toward a $235 million investment in automaker Aston Martin. As the company’s executive chairman, Yew Tree increased his investment from an initial 19% stake to 28%. in the first 18 months of ownership.
With the operations of the Racing Point and Aston Martin entities, Stroll set out to merge the two: his F1 team was renamed Aston Martin Factory F1 Team at the beginning of 2021, and his son Lance partnered with four-time Sebastian Vettel.
While Stroll’s initial idea would possibly have been for his son Lance to find his way into F1, the savvy businessman doesn’t invest such gigantic sums of cash in Formula 1 for the sake of it. He has since embarked on a massive investment programme for his F1. team.
While the former Jordan/Force India team was known for building competitive machines on shoestring budgets, Stroll and Aston Martin’s contribution has seen the team succeed across F1’s budget cap since the arrival of monetary regulation in 2021 , with Stroll having signed on as well. on the structure of a new F1 factory near Silverstone, whose operations are expected to begin in the coming months.
Stroll also managed to convince Fernando Alonso to leave Alpine F1, the Group Renault official F1 team with which he won two world titles in 2005 and 2006, to join the fledgling Aston Martin team. – evidence, if needed, that the billionaire means business.
While his son Lance held his own against Vettel during their two seasons as teammates, the Canadian driver also started life as Alonso’s teammate in impressive fashion despite a pre-season injury that curtailed his testing time.
Although Aston Martin’s performance levels have fallen from the lofty levels of early 2023, Stroll’s ambition to see his F1 team at the top level has faltered.
Aston Martin is reportedly on the verge of signing F1 design guru Adrian Newey and has also made a move by signing Max Verstappen.
In addition to fashion, Stroll’s love of cars led him to amass a vast collection of incredibly expensive and exotic machines, usually Ferraris. Establishing itself as a Ferrari dealership by promoting the logo in Montreal, Stroll boasted of owning cars such as the Ferrari 250 GTO. , GT40, an F50, a 288 GTO and a 275 GTB Spyder.
He paid £20 million for the Spyder in 2013, while he sold his 250 GTO for £50 million in a personal sale in 2018.
Other cars in his collection include a 1996 McLaren F1 and a Ford GT.
When not on dry land, Stroll also owned a superyacht called Faith. Costing around £200 million and built in 2017, the yacht included a helipad, glass-bottom pool and beach club, as well as a fireplace built into the saloon. He is said to have sold the yacht to Michael Latifi , father of Canadian racing driver Nicholas, while Stroll commissioned the shell of a new superyacht to upgrade Faith.