Engine Maker Cosworth Seeks New Owner

British high-performance engine maker Cosworth Group is shopping for a buyer after its two American owners announced they want to bow out.

CEO Tim Routsis says 70% of the company's revenue comes from one-time development projects, with the balance generated by product sales. He tells London's Financial Times he wants to reverse that ratio in three years, an effort he estimates will take as much as $96 million in new investment.

Routsis says achieving that result will require an investment of as much as $96 million, which is more than current shareholders Gerry Forsythe and Kevin Kalkhoven want to spend. He tells the FT their decision to sell the company is "completely amicable."

Last year Cosworth posted an $8 million pretax profit on sales of about $88 million. Routsis figures the company's sales could reach $144 million by 2016, assuming Cosworth finds a suitable new investor. He tells the FT the company is developing a $4,800 engine for an unidentified European carmaker that could approximate the performance of a Formula One engine costing more than 80 times as much.

Cosworth was formed in 1958 by Mike Costin and Keith Duckworth. The company built championship-winning Formula One racing engines that powered 155 winners from the late 1960s through the 1970s, and it later supplied engines to the World Touring Car and U.S. IndyCar series. Ford Motor Co. bought Cosworth in 1998 and sold it in 2004 to the current owners.