For Saab, Still a Shot at Survival
Hopes dimmed Friday when General Motors rejected a plan to sell it to Spyker Cars and said the brand would be shut down. But new interest surfaced Sunday, including a renewed offer from Spyker.
A spokesman for G.M. reacted cautiously to the new bid from Spyker, a tiny Dutch maker of high-end sports cars that many industry experts doubt could successfully revive Saab, the struggling Swedish brand. However, he said other potential buyers had expressed an interest since Friday’s announcement.
“We continue to wind down Saab, but during that process we’ve received several expressions of interest,” said Chris Preuss, the G.M. spokesman. “We evaluate these offers as they come, but beyond that we’re not making any comment.”
G.M. said Friday that it did not think a deal could be concluded by its Dec. 31 deadline because of concerns about Spyker that arose during the final negotiations. G.M. said that left it no alternative but to begin winding down Saab’s operations in Trollhattan, Sweden.
Raising the ante Sunday, Victor R. Muller, Spyker’s chief executive, said he had presented G.M. with an 11-point proposal that addressed the automaker’s concerns. He imposed a deadline of his own, 5 p.m. Eastern time on Monday, for G.M. to respond to his offer.
“Despite our collective 11th-hour setback, we are returning to the table with a renewed offer that addresses every known issue brought to light during the initial negotiations and that has the full backing of the Saab management,” Mr. Muller said in a statement.
Publicly, G.M. executives declined to identify their problems with Spyker, but several officials familiar with the private negotiations said G.M. was troubled by Spyker’s reliance on Russian loans to finance the deal, as well as the fate of Saab’s proprietary technology under Spyker.
The biggest investor in Spyker is the Russian bank Convers Group, which is controlled by Alexander Antonov. (In March, Mr. Antonov was shot seven times and reportedly lost a finger in an attempt on his life in Moscow. No arrests have been made.) His son Vladimir, 34, is a top executive at Convers and the chairman of Spyker.
In the first half of 2009, Spyker borrowed 11.6 million euros, or $16.6 million, from Bank Snoras, a Lithuanian bank also controlled by the Antonovs.
Another snag had been the question of whether Spyker could win a 400 million euro loan from the European Investment Bank that had been part of an earlier plan to sell Saab to Koenigsegg, a Swedish maker of high-end sports cars. That deal collapsed last month.
In his statement Sunday, Mr. Muller said Spyker, whose specialty sports cars cost about $250,000 each, could complete the deal without the European Investment Bank’s help.
“The new offer eliminates the need for an E.I.B. loan approval prior to year-end, for example, which will allow the deal to be concluded within G.M.’s deadline,” he said.
“Our company motto is ‘Nulla tenaci invia est via’: for the tenacious, no road is impassable,” Mr. Muller added. “And we intend to remain true to that throughout these negotiations as we bid to secure Saab’s future and revive the company.”
In Trollhattan, which was hit hard by Friday’s announcement, the new Spyker offer provoked a brief flurry of hope.
“It’s good news, of course, but it’s difficult to say too much,” said Paul Akerlund, chairman of the metal workers’ union there, which represents about 1,500 of Saab’s 3,500 employees in Trollhattan. “Now we’re waiting to see what G.M. says, but we know Spyker really wants to buy Saab.”
“People still have hopes, but they’re waiting on G.M.,” he added.
Saab was set to introduce a new version of its 9-5 luxury sedan in showrooms in April, the first update of Saab’s top-end car in 12 years. But G.M. said Friday that the car would not make it to market if Saab did indeed shut down.
[nytimes]
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