Mansour Akram Ojjeh (25 September 1952 – 6 June 2021) (Arabic: مَنْصُور أَكْرَم عُجَّة, romanized: Manṣūr ʾAkram ʿUjjah) was a French Saudi Arabian-born[1] entrepreneur[2] who owned a part of TAG, a Luxembourg-based holding company with interests worldwide.
Ojjeh was named CEO of the company founded by his father, TAG Group, which largely operates in Europe and the Middle East.
During the early days of his tenure as the CEO of TAG Group, Ojjeh has tried to avoid publicity as much as he could but hit the headlines when he purchased the liner Le France.
Ojjeh's interest with motorsport began when he watched the 1978 Monaco Grand Prix as a guest of the Saudi Arabian royal family, which owned flag-carrier Saudia, a sponsor of Williams Racing.
The engine project was successful and the team secured victory in 1979 British Grand Prix with Swiss driver Clay Regazzoni.
Ojjeh agreed with Dennis terms and become the majority stakeholder for McLaren Group, owning 60 percent of the stake in the company.
During the 1980s, Ojjeh invested in Porsche-built turbocharged engines which carried the name of his company, Techniques d'Avant Garde (TAG).
In 1984, the McLaren-Tag Porsche dominated F1, the team winning 12 of 16 races and Lauda beating team-mate Prost to the title by the smallest margin in the sport’s history, half a point.
In 2000, after supplying engines to the team through its Mercedes subsidiary for 5 years, Daimler AG exercised an option to buy 40% of the TAG McLaren Group.
[12] Dennis and Ojjeh each retained a 30% share,[13] and each sold half of their stake to the Mumtalakat Holding Company (the sovereign wealth fund of the Kingdom of Bahrain) in 2007.
During these times McLaren was criticized due to underperforming after resuming the powertrain supply deal with Honda which affected the car performance.
In 2015 Dennis wanted to keep Kevin Magnussen to partner Fernando Alonso in 2015, it was Ojjeh who stepped in and undermined him, forcing him to take Jenson Button instead.