SaabsUnited Exclusive – 9-4X out in the wild
April 15, 2011 in Uncategorized
Well here are some more photos for you, today I spotted a pre-production variant of the 9-4x in Trollhättan. Enjoy! =)
COPYRIGHT © SAABSUNITED
You are browsing the archive for 2011 April.
by TimR
by RikardH
The SAAB Owners Club of GB visits Trollhättan
April 15, 2011 in Troll Stuff
Some of you may have already seen it.. RobinM (a writer on SU) and his The SAAB Owners Club of GB Ltd visits Trollhättan this weekend and they got interviewed today at the Saab Museum..
More from his weekend will come from Robin himself next week I quess 
/RikardH
by Jeff
Saab Secures Financing
April 15, 2011 in News
At the 17:30 press conference in Rosenbad, Enterprise and Energy Minister Maud Olofsson announced that they have given Saab the go-ahead to borrow money from a European bank. The new owner of the Saab plant will be Saab Automobile AB Properties, which she confirmed is controlled by Vladimir Antonov. In turn, Sweden’s taxpayer exposure decreases since the loan guaranteed by Sweden will also decrease. The Debt Office continues to work on a review of Vladimir Antonov that will allow him to come in as part owner with a share just under 30% of the company. While this isn’t technically a transfer of money yet, Sweden’s freeing up of Saab’s collateral was one of the biggest hurdles in allowing Saab to gain access to sell its facilities and get quick access to capital. As Spyker said in their press statement, there are still issues yet to be resolved but this is the surest sign yet that Saab will be able to pay its debts very soon.
There are three tough conditions for the settlement:
- The price for the properties must be fair and the company has access to the Saab production facilities. Since the loan amount is being reduced by €120 million, one could assume that the purchase price of the factory might be somewhere around this number (in 2009 the property was valued somewhere around €110 million).
- Any questions remaining about Antonov must be resolved. This is to prevent any question of money laundering.
- The money must flow through a European bank that isn’t connected to Antonov.
Sadly the conditions are all there to satisfy any doubts about Vladimir Antonov, which I’m sure he’s happy to prove are unfounded. Time will heal, and his image will hopefully recover someday. For now, these are the conditions Saab has to live with, and while they may be overly complex, it’s a testament to Saab management to be able to pull another rabbit out of their hats.
The EIB loan facility will decrease to 280 million, of which Saab has already borrowed 217 million. No word yet on if the money must still be used for environmental projects, but by all accounts those conditions remain. According to Daniel Barr from the Swedish National Debt Office, the deal must be approved by the EIB. As you’ll read in Spyker’s press release below, there are still outstanding issues to be ironed out. Saab will be guaranteed a down payment of 30 million (Euro we think), but the facilities will bring in a lot, lot more. This frees up liquidity right away to pay suppliers and get the production line moving while at the same time giving Saab a buffer to work towards securing long-term financing. In other words, they’re not treading water anymore, they at least have a life preserver. Now it’s time to get back on the ship and get back to safer water.
Spyker’s press release:
SPYKER CONFIRMS STATEMENT SWEDISH GOVERNMENT ABOUT RELEASE OF NDO’S SECURITY IN SAAB PROPERTY
Zeewolde, The Netherlands, 15 April 2011 – Spyker Cars N.V. (Spyker) confirms the announcement of the Swedish Government approving the release of the pledge of the Swedish National Debt Office (NDO) in the shares of Saab Automobile Property AB (Saab Property), subject to certain conditions.
Saab Automobile AB continues its discussions with respect to the sale of its property, based on the additional conditions of the Swedish Government. The outcome of the discussions is still not certain and subject to the approval of the European Investment Bank.
In a telephone interview earlier today, Ola Kinnander of Bloomberg reported Victor said, ““This was the first step, we’ve been waiting for this way too long…Now we can work on the various conditions they’ve imposed that we’re trying to analyze. We will continue working through the weekend to reach agreement on the various points.”
No word yet on when production might restart, but Svenake Berglie says suppliers are willing to get the pipeline moving again. On April 12, Spyker said they wanted to get production started within a week, but as many have pointed out in comments, with various holidays coming up like Easter, there’s scheduled days off in between which should give some buffer time.
For more information and the sources of this information, see DI’s story and TTela’s story (and by all means visit dn.se and vote “Ja” (Saab will make it through the year). This post will be updated as we receive more information. As you could tell, your F5 keys crashed the site once already 
.
by Red J
Government Press Conference at 17:30 on Saab
April 15, 2011 in News
Before you start spamming all the posts with this piece of news….
Mrs. Maud Olofsson herself will talk about Saab at 17:30 CEST
—
UPDATE
Go-ahead to borrow money
Maud Olofsson came with information on Saab’s future at a press briefing at Rosenbad. The bottom line is that the government gives the go-ahead for Saab to borrow money. However, it has not yet taken a position in the question of ownership.
From ttela.se
—
UPDATE 2
Saab will sell its properties to Vladimir Antonov. The EIB loan will be reduced from 400 million Euros to 280 million Euros.
by TimR
SaabsUnited Exclusive – Color testing?
April 15, 2011 in News
From djupstrupe: A brand new color is being tested at SAAB, the color code is 318 and and a 9-3 Griffin Convertible is the test subject.
SaabsUnited have received some great photos from one of our dear friends! =) The color is pretty close in tone to the anniversary edition 9-3 from 2007 but looks deeper and a bit darker… Enjoy!
The photos are under SAABSUNITED © COPYRIGHT
by Swade
SU meetup – New York
April 15, 2011 in Events, Troll Stuff
Hi all, Swade here.
I’m heading over to New York on the weekend to cover the NYIAS for Saab. We’ll be using the New York show to launch our all-new Saab website (more on that later).
If any of you can be in town on Sunday afternoon/evening then I’d love to catch up with you for a casual get together.
A clarifying note – the meetup is proposed for this Sunday, April 17th. It’s not for Easter Sunday.
I realise that Sunday will be a religious holiday for some (Passover), but unfortunately it’s the only time that I’ll have available. The rest of the week will be quite busy with Saaby activities.
The proposed meeting time is 4:30pm, which should hopefully give some people time to come in and then leave at a reasonable time if necessary. Those who’d like to linger longer would be most welcome to do so, of course.
A venue I’ve had suggested to me is Café Un Duex Trois at 123 West 44th. Good place, good food and a good size. They get busy from 6pm to 8pm so getting in early should assure us some space, too.
RSVP
It’ll be essential to let them know we’re coming, so please let me know asap via email (swade99-at-gmail.com) if you’ll be coming in, and how many people will be with you.
It’ll be great to meet some of you for the first time, as well as re-connecting with some old friends.
See you in New York!
by Brendan
BAIC and their SAAB purchase
April 15, 2011 in News
The Shanghai Auto Show is starting next week, with the media days on the 19th and 20th April. Ahead of the show Beijing Automotive Industry Holding Co, known as BAIC, are showing off what they have on offer, and there is a lot to be interested in for Saab fans.
I’ll take a look at all the offerings after the jump.
by Jeff
Friday Morning Snippets
April 15, 2011 in News
Consider this the morning edition of snippets, short and to the point. There were two noteworthy stories from overnight and a few updates from the Swedish government this morning. As we’ve said all week, the situation is complex and they’re extremely close to a solution. Keep your F5 keys handy today.
___________
Depending on who you trust more, DI and TTela have similar but different takes on how quick the decision will be regarding letting Vladimir Antonov in as an owner of Saab. Both quote Maud Olofsson’s office and state that they’re working around the clock to expedite the process.
We are handling the matter expeditiously, but the material is quite extensive and we can not now provide any information about exactly how long it takes,” said Johanna Martin, Maud Olofsson’s press secretary.
DI goes further and states we might hear an answer about the short term finance solution today (doubtful but if it does happen today you’ll have a strong indication of how deeply involved the Swedish government plans to be) updated: they made the announcement that the collateral for the loan is freed up– you can see just how important they think Saab is and understand the urgency.
“We’ve been working evening and night and will make an announcement as soon as we possibly can,” said Maud Olofsson’s press secretary Eric Bratthall.
_____________
IAC, who supplies the dashboards for Saab, had to lay off 55 temporary workers due to the production stop at Saab. From the Wall Street Journal:
“We work under the assumption that production will resume by the end of this week,” (Svenake Berglie) said. “If Saab does not solve this (liquidity problem), we’ll have to review our structure again, but I do not wish to speculate on that.”
Sad to see the cycle complete itself where it began, with the suppliers. Saab is still not commenting until the deal is finalized and approved, a good move in my eyes. No need to give anyone else morsels to speculate with.
___________
I hesitated posting this, and since it’s completely based on behind the scenes rumblings, I’m giving the disclaimer that this is more from the don’t believe it until we get more details column. That said, it’s coming from an extremely reputable source, so it’s probably true. Hilton Holloway at Autocar is suggesting that Saab is going to buy the current mini R56 platform from BMW (which means moving tooling somewhere else, Trollhattan, Latvia maybe? ). If they can pull this off, and launch a new 9-3 on time despite the supplier mess, and break even in 2012, that would be a herculean achievement. As optimistic as I always am, I don’t know how pie in the sky this whole thing is. My caution: Saab needs to get it’s core models back together before it goes building new platforms, it’s got its hands full as it is. And yet if they don’t think long term, they won’t be able to grow their business in the medium-long term. Quite a conundrum.
___________
For all you Edmonton, Alberta residents, you finally have a place to buy a new Saab.
___________
Autocar and Auto Express have reported their findings (and taken some sexy pictures) from their drive in the 9-5 estate.
As Cerulean said in his tip to us, it looks promising. Their basic take– Saab has done a great job adapting the magnetic Drivesense system for UK roads, but the diesels are still not quite as refined as the BMW or Mercedes competition. That they’re coming in so much lower in price than their rivals will make them a very interesting choice though. The test used preproduction units, so we’ll still hold off on reporting about real world impressions of the interior or true road tests.
___________
I’ll have a post up later in the day about some exciting marketing going on in the states, led by the head of the US Saab Dealer Council, Kurt Schirm. Stay tuned.
by Jeff
Saab Sponsors Aspen Shortsfest
April 14, 2011 in News
Last week, Saab sponsored the 20th annual Aspen Shortsfest, which attracts an audience of over 30,000 guests annually, from local residents to Hollywood A-listers. All movies are under 40 minutes, and many go on to win Oscars in the category. The mountain west market, as CJ can tell you, could be a huge source of sales for the 9-4x. It’s great to see Saab going after this area aggressively (and better to see that there’s still good Spring skiing on Little Nell behind the 9-4x ). Saab uploaded a picture of the 9-4x on the streets of Aspen to their Facebook wall, and you can see their “Think Independently” video booth after the break.
by TimR
Saab’s Deal is Completed, Government Approval Next
April 14, 2011 in News
Today a deal from Saab was signed, sealed and delivered to the government for their approval. Key points:
- So far no objections have been raised by the NDO to bring money into SAAB.
- Some of the guarantees have been withdrawn causing a decrease in the total loan SAAB is able to receive from the EIB (remember Saab is structured as ToolCo., which owns Saab tool operations, the real estate arm PropCo., and PartsCo. which deals with its spare parts business) to free up collateral for new loans from a foreign partner to gain immediate liquidity.
- We assume the foreign partner being brought in to provide the loan is Vladimir Antonov (obviously), who continues to clear his name.
Update*: According to an interview made by SVT, Bo Lundgren, the head of the NDO claims the background check has nothing to do with any criminal activities of VA but rather a check up of his financial capacities and financial history. A standard background check that is always performed…
by TimR
Saab’s Profit machine
April 14, 2011 in Uncategorized
DN has a great story about Saab’s fairly unknown profit machine, Saab Parts based in Nyköping. Spare parts are delivered to the whole world from this location, profit last year was 380 million SEK.
“We are not encountering any disruptions at all,” says the manger Lennart Ståhl.
by Carl-Henrik
Teknikens Värld: BMW 3-series vs. Saab 9-3
April 14, 2011 in test drive
Winning by a nose. Photo: Andreas Libell - Teknikens Värld
Here’s a reminder why Saab is worth fighting for.
The Swedish car-magazine Teknikens Värld recently tested the BMW 320d ED and Saab 9-3 1,9 TTiD. I would say that it’s a fair comparison between two good cars. They picked them since they’re both premium segment cars aimed at those who are looking for lower fuel consumption
In short, the Saab 9-3 outperformed and was priced better than the BMW, but the BMW wins over the Saab because it felt newer (even though they didn’t sample a Griffin).
If you want the long version, it’s after the break.
by TimR
SAAB Promotions
April 14, 2011 in News
A lot of e-mails and tips have been coming in about SAAB Marketing around the world, some of the mare billboards like the one below and some are pure sponsorship of different events. Some arguments have been made like this one: How can SAAB afford to do this when they cant afford to build cars?, well I talked to SAAB about this and the answer is very simple and I feel almost stupid for not realising it myself…, if you want to book a billboard you need to do it 4-6 months in advance and it must also be payed for in advance, so if SAAB were to pull out of that deal they would still lose their money. They are sticking to their marketing plan which is aggressive and good! =) A big thanx to Anders for the photos! =)
SAAB will also sponsor various sports activities, one great example is the Wales Open, where SAAB is the headline sponsor, here is a link to the article: - click here -
by TimR
Saabs taxes have been paid
April 14, 2011 in Uncategorized
According to DN: SAAB has paid its tax invoice to the tax-authorities, an amount of 13 million SEK that covered employment-fees and tax.
by TimR
Finance-minister Anders Borg talks to SVT about SAAB
April 14, 2011 in Uncategorized
Starting off, SVT’s finance & political commentator Mats Knutsson conducted and interview in live broadcast with Anders Borg who is the swedish finance minister. Here is a transcript and translation of the interview:
