The following is a background piece on Bard Eker, the Norwegian who owns 49% of Koenigsegg, as well as running his own industrial design business and Hydrolift boats.
He’s been the most vocal member of the Koenigsegg consortium and is probably the man who’s courted whoever the investors are behind the bid.
This piece was published today in Norway’s E24 news service and I’m very grateful for the translation that Arild has sent via email for me to share here.
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NORWEGIAN SPEED PHANTOM ON SAAB HUNT
This week industrial designer Bård Ekere became father of a little baby. If the negotiations with General Motors are successful, he can get even one more baby – SAAB – over the weekend.
Facts about Bård Eker
Industrial designer and entrepreneur
Age: 47
Wealth: NOK 450 million, according to financial magazine Capital last summer.
Income: 0 according to the taxation lists for 2007
Currently: Interested in taking on SAAB.
Speed. Full speed. All the time. That’s how the Norwegian designer, multi millionaire and father Bård Eker likes it the best.
But yesterday, in his home town of Fredrikstad, he had to park far away from the microphones to the Norwegian and international media. A media that can not understand that he is the front man of a group based around the Swedish luxury carmaker Koenigsegg, who now is the forerunner in taking over Swedish SAAB, although both Reuters and Sveriges Television reports that the group has already signed a letter of intent for the purchase of the car company.
- My dream is to buy SAAB, Eker said in an interview with E24 as late as mid-May.
Major changes
Now the dream can come true. Yesterday, it became known in Sweden that SAAB’s bankrupt owner General Motors has agreed to write off debt. No later than the creditor meeting on Wednesday next week, GM will make public who the buyer is. If it is Eker and his group, and they succeed in taking over, big changes may await SAAB.
- There’s nothing that is run less efficiently than a car factory today. SAAB has 1200 engineers, and when you ask the boss why there are so many, the answer is that the learning guide for the automotive industry says it should be at the least 600. We are 10 man who develops the world’s fastest car, Koenigsegg, said Eker to E24.
Within just two days, Eker has gone from being unknown to most people in Norway to being hunted by major international media.
- We have received calls from many foreign media, including both the New York Times and Bloomberg, says Eker secretary, Siv Bjørnstad, to E24.
Boat and car
Eker has been called “the Ghost Who Walks” by his employees in Fredrikstad. He barely sleeps. Just working all the time. That is when he is not driving sports cars or racer boats to their limits. The Eker group has been built up over the last nine years around the design of everything from projectors to boats and cars and even child buggies. The design is very distinctive and extreme at times.
-If Bård takes over SAAB, soon there will be SAAB models with wings, said one aquantance of Eker jokingly.
The young Eker was to become an architect, but after studying at the National College of Art and at Pratt in New York, he started his own industrial design business in Norway in 1989. He designed, among other things, boats. And when the manufacturer of the Hydro-Lift boats went aground in Fredrikstad in 2002, he took over the bankrupt company. Since then, Hydro Lift has invested in fast and expensive boats.
Big loss
But it is the design and production of exclusive data and video projectors that are now bringing the Eker group the biggest revenue. Last year Projectiondesign, where Eker owns 54 percent, had a net profit of NOK 73 million. Bill Gates has bought six projectors to his ultra-modern house, while Ferrari and McLaren-factories use them in Formula 1-simulators.
So far, his investment in Koenigsegg has not been as profitable. Eker has invested well over NOK 40 million for a stake of 49 percent in the super sports car. Koenigsegg is currently losing money, but last year the manufacturer only lost about 1 million dollars of a total turnover of approx. 90 million.
Rich Racers
His car companion, Hans Christian von Koenigsegg, calls Eker the Norwegian Richard Branson in the Swedish media.
Eker is not unlike Branson of appearance, and also not when it comes to adventure. In 2004 he started offshore racing at sea. Allready the next year, he became world champion with Bjørn Rune Gjelsten’s old boat “Spirit of Norway” on which Eker had previously been a mechanic. In the speculations about who Eker has with him as investors in buying SAAB, it is the rich competitors from offshore racing and customers of Hydro Lift and Koenigsegg who are mentioned. But Gjelsten denies that he is in on the SAAB-deal, and says he has not had contact with Eker for a while.
Hardly Norwegian
There is little evidence to suggests that Eker has teamed up with his countrymen in the mysterious investor group.
Paul Åkerlund, who is head of the union IF Metall at the SAAB factory in Trollhättan, says he knows who’s behind with the capital to buy SAAB.
He will not say who it is, but tells the newspaper Aftenposten that he is confident that they have enough money.
-Is it Norwegian or foreign investors who are behind this?
- Norway is a too small, Åkerlund says.
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Thanks again, Arild!
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{ 19 comments }
I guess there’s one Saab a Koenigsegg can’t outdrag!: http://images.thetruthaboutcars.com/2009/06/koenigsegg.jpg
It’s precisely this that worries me with Koenigsegg/Eker. Saab is not a little baby. It’s not a toy to have fun with for a while until reality sets in. In this case, I have to say that I have to put my trust in GM, of all places. I they are indeed dependent on Saab technologies and want Saab to exist long term, then they should make sure that there are some international-level financiers behind Eker, some experiences heavy-hitting investors that can take control and avoid yet another wannabe jet-set crash and burn.
The good thing about Bård Eker is that he is genuinely interested in cars and design. And behind him there are people with lots of money, people who believe in Bård Eker’s and Koenigsegg’s dream. These people stand the risk of losing lots of money. Nobody likes to lose money, so they have without any doubt reviewed both Saab’s business plan and Bård Eker’s and Koenigsegg’s plan very thoroughly. They believe they can make money by following Bård Eker and Koenigsegg.
As a contrast, companies like Renco or Merbanco have a primary interest in making money. They may not even be particularly interested in cars or design. If I could choose, I would like my next Saab to be designed and engineered under the ownership of Bård Eker and his investors. Then it’s a greater chance that the car will follow Saab’s great heritage of unique design and engineering solutions.
Designing cars is something Saab can handle. The main problem is (and I know Swade has mentioned this more than once) that Saab need backing by serious top-level management with international experience. I don’t see Eker (or anyone in his small group) having this. Their operations are way too small. He probably likes to be in the limelight, but my hope goes to those behind the scene. My rule about financiers is this: the more boring, the better.
Having home theater projectors as a big hobby and doing DSP/FPGA programming i must say bård has done a tremendous job with projectiondesign. He transformed previous worker for Infocus and ASK to fully reach their dreams with Texas instruments in DLP technology (amazing PWM technolgy!!). Currently Projectiondeisgn is toghter with the italian based projector manufacturer SIM2 co-developer for TI DLP and DSP technologies.
But,with recent development in LCOS and LCD from JVC,EPSON and Sony, Projectiondeisgn and TI needs to take yet antoher technology groundbreaking step and i think their research with LED might do the trick.
I do really belive this is the MAN with the right vision for SAAB.
Lundin,
What is the mood at the factory since this announcement? People feel positive about Koenigsegg’s involvement?
There’s some more news about Bård Eker in the media. According to e24.no, Bård Eker sells his stake in Projectiondesign and makes NOK 250 million. I guess this could be good money to bring into Saab. And the sale would also free up some of his time…
Furthermore, I had an exciting thought earlier today: With Bård Eker and Koenigsegg behind Saab, I dare to dream about Saab once again entering some sort of racing!
Eker was racing his Hydrolift boat until recently, which shows that he’s got an interest in competitive stuff, but perhaps more appropriate is that he knows when to pull out if it’s too expensive, too.
That said, the one area where Saab can’t spend enough money is in the WRC. If I were them I’d be in the process of lining up drivers, etc for a WRC campaign tied to the release of the smaller next-gen 9-3. It would be a huge PR boost for the car while reasserting Saab’s unique position in the marketplace.
And it’s exactly this sort of youthful, action-focused marketing that makes me so pleased to see Eker and Koenigsegg on board with Saab. They will breathe some new life into what is in a lot of ways a fairly dull car company right now.
It could very well be that Mr. eker is crazy enough for this to work out…
And maybe Saab needs some craziness to survive on their own.
Based on my U.S. corporate experiences from very large to very small, and buying from both large and small, it always seems to come down to the leadership, willingness to take risks, that vision thing, and motivated, well trained staff to get the job done. low correlation with size and scale.
I mentioned William McDonough (cradle to cradle) as the closest paradigm-changer I could think of after I read about Bard Eker. William Ford Jr hired McDonough in 1999 – read about what they accomplished at: http://www.mcdonough.com/writings/restoring_industrial.htm
Ford fired Jacques Nasser in 2001, took over as CEO until he hired Mullally in 2006. Seems to all be working out pretty well for Ford.
Bard’s passion is very promising, but the cautious opinions voiced here are also well-grounded in reality. And we don’t know for sure that Renco and Merbanco are not Saab enthusiasts, too.
But Eker does seem to be one of those extraordinary people who are both extravagant personalities and good businessmen. People like Sir Richard Branson and Larry Ellis.
Swade,
Yes,overall very postive indeed. First of all,it was very important that some information from the sale proces was leaked, even i had my doubts about was was really going on…
And secondly,even without knowing their (Bård anc Co) intensions most people feel Bård really wants to form a true automotive know-how competence centra with “local roots”. This was very much the idea with projectiondesign. Keep the special ideas from Fredrikstad and try to concur the world.
Swade,
Yes,overall very postive indeed. First of all,it was very important that some information from the sale proces was leaked, even i had my doubts about was was really going on…
And secondly,even without knowing their (Bård anc Co) intensions most people feel Bård really wants to form a true automotive know-how competence centra with “local roots”. This was very much the idea with projectiondesign. Keep the special ideas from Fredrikstad and try to concur the world.
One way to look at his comments about the # of engineers at Saab is that rather than wanting to trim them down to match Saab’s output, he is simply wondering how they can have so many engineers and not be turning out all kinds of interesting and successful products (which we all know they can).
Makes me think of the report of how many approvals Saab engineers had to get under GM just to change a bolt. With this guy at the helm we may see more of Saab’s true potential coming out (in abundance) rather than a bunch of talented engineers wasting that talent getting things approved (or more often, rejected) by GM’s global mess.
Let’s hope he and Christian prefer to accelerate development of new successful models for a Saab renaissance rather than trim existing talent!
Lundin, this is very encouraging to hear. Agreed that it was high time some news leak, esp. after the speedy Opel and Saturn deals and the Hummer sale.
For all the drama us pundits have gone through during the past six months, I can only imagine how you guys felt with your jobs on the line.
An automotive, heck industrial powerhouse with Nordic roots sounds good to me.
The more I learn about Eker, the more I think this man is EXACTLY what Saab needs. Passionate, creative, driven, energetic, environmentally aware, underrated, and proven, all while being a little bit crazy. Sounds like a Saab to me.
Audi, BMW, et al, the screaming chicken is coming for you.
Definitely! Being crazy now and escaping the large OEM template might be what SAAB needs to survive long term.
This guy reminds me of Sir Richard Branson in the sense of not being your conventional businessman. And that’s a good thing!
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