New bid for the Saab car factory

New bid for the Saab factory
According to Dagens Industri there is a new bid for Saab, they do not mean the multi-billion bid from Youngman but an other European company. Frederick Sidahl, president of Automotive Suppliers, FKG has not given up hope that the Saab factory in Trollhättan can resume production "we have received prior notice from the administrators that they are working to sell Saab as a whole". This statement is not changed, he told Dagens Industri.

Saab Museum Gallery
Alexander has made a new Saab Museum Gallery, some pictures are old, some new, all of them a have higher resolution as the pictures in the earlier galleries he has made.

Do you have pictures too from Saabs in the wild or in the museum? Feel free to share them with us on our Facebook page!

Youngman back in the race for Saab

Update: A source close to SU says that Youngman is back in the race. The receivers are now back in touch with Youngman.

Several stakeholders are critical of the way the bankruptcy gets handled. TTela reports: “What are the receivers doing? That is the question posed by several stakeholders concerning Saab’s bankruptcy – Youngman’s advances are rejected, the Swedish stakeholders receives no feedback while Semcon could be getting their hands on some of the estate.”.

Fredrik Sidahl, CEO of FKG (An interest group for suppliers in Scandinavia), points out that the receivers were invited to visit Youngman’s facilities in China, but will not be represented today. “Every proposal for a complete solution should be carefully examined”. He notes that the receivers have not been in touch with neither himself nor any of his member companies.

Instead, among others, IF Metall (one of the unions) will meet with Youngman.

Lars Holmqvist, CEO of CLEPA, is also critical: “One can voice different opinion of Youngman, but they are the only ones truly familiar with the case after having spent half a year negotiating with the company. For other interested parties it would take months before a complete solution could be presented. There is no available time for that.”

“Youngman has a plan involving the next generation 9-3, producing a new Lotus in the Saab factory and access the Phoenix technology. They should be considered.”

On the contrary, the bankruptcy estate is running out of cash. “They are forced to divest assets in order to operate properly”.

Divesting assets makes it harder to reach a complete solution. Semcon seems to be getting closer to acquiring certain assets. Saab AB has also been mentioned having similar interests.

“There are assets that are interesting to many, but if these are divested what remains could be worth nill. And that could cause problems finding a solution that covers everything” says Darko Davidovic, General Counsel for IF Metall.

Saab AB’s spoke person Erik Magni says “We are interested in Saab’s engineers, through Combitech, which is something we have announced. That is all I know.”

CLEPA’s Lars Holmqvist thinks it starts smoldering [I have no idea how to translate "pyra" in this sentence -- going with Google for now] with his member companies. “They have debts of 1.5 billion SEK. If Saab gets split up they will not be able to recover debts. They want the production to restart. I do not want to make threats, but many big suppliers are staffed with lawyers who they can assign to look into this matter.”

TTela has not been able to reach Semcon and the receivers about this – and other matters. The receiver yesterday called for a press conference on Saturday.

Besides that, according to SaabsUnited the Turkish company Brightwell is also still in the race for Saab. According to that article the receivers are focused on the Turks. “I work closely with Victor Muller, the receivers and others from Saab’s management group” says Brightwell’s Zamier Ahmed – which is even confirmed by Victor Muller.

The lawyers of the bankruptcy work have invited selected media to attend a pressconference in Göteborg this Saturday. Maybe that is a good sign?

It all makes clear it is not over yet for Saab. That is the good news for today. Let us hope no one places a bid for (parts of) the museum too. Thus giving Innovatum a fair chance to take over the museum.

I`ve made the above picture last monday at Zeeland Airport by the way, a good day to drive with my Troll. I hope to be present at IntSaab this year with my Troll and one of my 9-3`s.

Victor Muller has not given up on Saab!

Victor Muller has not given up on Saab.

The CEO has spent almost the entire Christmas season trying to save the car plant.

(Update: There are now reports that the Chinese Dongfeng Motor is looking at Saab's bankruptcy estate.)

Just over a week ago, Muller was forced to give up and ask for Saab, "his passion" - according to himself, to be placed into bankruptcy. This is after months of negotiations with China's Youngman.

GM ceased their attempts to move forward with these plans, and it was a very upset Saab CEO who held a press conference at the factory in Trollhattan on Monday of last week.

Since then, Youngman, whose interest in the Swedish car brand has not wained, held talks with the receivers.

Exactly what the talks resulted in is not yet known, but it is clear that many Saab Speculators have heard from him [Victor Muller] [directly]. Victor Muller has verified this information with TTELA as recently as late last week.

Efforts to get Saab back on track have been going on for nearly the entire holiday season, writes Saabsunited.com.



On Tuesday, there were new reports of Dongfeng Motor, which previously had an interest in Saab, is one of the current speculators. This report is from wantchinatimes.com, referring to China Economic Net.

Dongfeng Motor, China's third largest car manufacturer is reported to work on developing its own brand. Saab's technology is considered to be valuable in the development process.

In the battle for the estate with Dongfeng is a [yet unnamed] Turkish company.