SaabsUnited.com

December 19th…

01:11 in the night. People were worried about what was going on surrounding Saab, I was monitoring the situation in the media and having some direct contact with Victor Muller via text messaging. The deal which were supposed to save Saab had ran straight into a truck… a big GM truck…

01:22 I receive an SMS from Victor Muller where he states exactly what I described the following: Basically GM said no to any chinese involvement in Saab in any way, be it a loan, investment or anything else did not matter. The answer was NO. And GM were, “in not so many words”, saying that they were going to exercise their rights, which meant that they would stop all licenses Saab had for building the current model of the 9-3, 9-5 and the 9-4x. This effectively meant that any money invested by Youngman into Saab would be invested into a car factory without any cars to build… which to anyone makes no sense at all.

Youngman were still convinced that the deal was a good one, but they were scared to lose such a huge amount of money. They had already invested about 50 million euro over 6-7 months into the Saab venture.

This is when I understood that Saab will not survive another day…

01:33 I asked Victor if they were still working on trying to find a solution with GM but they had decided to turn in for the night. Victor was actually just about to go to bed at this time to get about 4 hours of sleep.

05:00 or somewhere around then Victor Muller received a final answer from GM and by then he realized, the race is lost. There is no point in trying to argue a continuation of the reconstruction in court which was scheduled at 13:00 later that day. To ensure that all the employees get paid before christmas and to provide support to the many that had waited so long, Victor made the final decision that Saab needs to enter voluntary bankruptcy.

07:30 I wake up and start to get ready for the day. I had arranged with RikardH and Rune that we would cover the proceedings at the district court for the attempt to extend the reconstruction.

08:30 I headed out towards SAAB, for some reason I had to just visit the factory. While there I noticed that almost all the parking lots were full of cars, lots of employees reported in for work today. It was a very nice sight and it brought back memories from the days when I used to work at Saab. When I arrived at the main gate I noticed that Gunnar Brunius was there to return some keys, he had left the company a few weeks earlier. A TT reporter was there as well and I got a very strange feeling, if she is here, then there is no point in going to the district court because there weren’t going to be any proceedings. The thoughts I had earlier that night were probably true.

09:15 Victor Muller personally arrives at the district court in Vänersborg to hand in the bankruptcy declaration together with Kristina Geers. Photo by Kent Eng (TTELA)

Read Saab’s bankruptcy application here (in swedish)

09:30 While driving over the Stallbacka bridge on my way to Vänersborg to pick up our great photographer RikardH the news broke, SAAB Declares bankruptcy… My first thought was “SHIT”, my second thought was how do I get this out on SU. I grabbed my iPhone, while driving, not too smart… and posted an article on SU via the wordpress App, I didn’t have time to think much about what to write and any fancy words would not really matter anyway. I entered the title “Bankruptcy” and wrote the words “Saab has just filed for bankruptcy…” which was more than enough.

The message of a new article with the title was sent out on Facebook and Twitter right away and it didn’t take too long before SU’s new fancy server was flooded by visitors which proved way too much for it to handle. The server crashed…

I called RikardH and told him what had just happened and we decided that I would pick him up and we would go to the Saab main gate and await Rune’s arrival.

09:55 We arrive at Saab’s main gate. Some reporters from TTELA (the local newspaper) and Swedish Television had already arrived. I parked my car just outside the main door, it was sort of a protest towards the volvo’s and toyotas that the reporters were driving. What made me smile a bit was that the Dagens Industri reporters, who had basically been the most anti-saab of all reporters, arrived in an almost brand new 9-3 SportsCombi =)

10:30 Rune arrives and we decide upon how we are going to work. I will try to cover the video and posts on the site, RikardH will cover Facebook and take low-resolution web photos that he would upload to a specially created media page that we placed on the website. Rune would take the high resolution raw photos that we were going to preserve for historical reasons.

11:15 We find out that there will be a market call from Victor Muller at 13:30 and we are given the access code to that call.

11:30 We decide to get some lunch, most reporters were looking very hungry and didn’t really know what to do. McDonalds Chicken Bacon deluxe worked well for us.

11:50 We are informed that Saab that a press conference will be held by Victor Muller at 14:45. We did know that all the employees were to be informed at 14:00 and all production manager and staff managers were instructed to call all of the employees and inform them of the information meeting. Prior to this everyone were awaiting a decision by the court but Saab decided that they could no longer wait for the court to make up its mind whether to approve the bankruptcy application or not.

13:25 We get into my car which is parked outside the main gate, we call the number and enter the access code to the call, it works well.

13:32 The market call is initiated by Knut Simonsson and Matthias Siedl together with Victor Muller. They explain what has happened and also brief dealers about warranty issues as well as parts warranty. At the end however Victor does explain that there were parties who have contacted Saab during the day showing interest in actually buying Saab Automobile. According to Swedish Law a company which has entered bankruptcy can be sold of as a whole and restarted.

13:50 We receive a recording of the conference call in two pieces which we decide to publish without delay. SU’s server is now working poorly due to the extreme number of visitors but it is working. Here you can listen to:

• Part 1
• Part 2

14:00 Victor Muller walks up on the stage inside the factory and he is met by applause from the employees. They have such a huge amount of respect for this man, it is unheard of anywhere and anytime in history.

14:30 A lot of reporters start to arrive and some of them are pushy and loud as always. Some photographers are almost out right rude when they were trying to get the best position. For us that was not a problem, we had been keeping our position there for a long time and in such having ensured the best spot possible for what we wanted to do.

14:45 Victor Muller enters the press-conference room at the main gate together with Eric Geers.

15:30 I was interviewed Live by Swedish Radio and I tried to give a sound but positive impression. That Saab lovers would continue to drive their cars, that I would certainly do that as well. That I hoped for a new owner who would want to build cars with the same values and morals as Saab had done for so many years.

15:50 Victor Muller is about done with his personal interviews, we didn’t want to trouble him too much but we still wanted to talk to him regardless of his busy schedule. We had opened up a new e-mail account where our readers could e-mail their questions to him. Most questions were answered by either the market call or the press conference. But one were not and that one was regarding to the fans and dealers possibility to gather money and purchase a significant part of a possible future company.

I aslo had one VERY important mission, and that was to shake Victor Mullers hand and on behalf of every fan visiting SaabsUnited, thank him for the amazing work he had done. I did just that!

17:10 After having driven RikardH back home, he did have to go to work a few hours later, we proceeded to ANA, the biggest dealership in Trollhättan. I wanted to talk to my friends there, especially Joachim Lind who had done so much for Saab over the years. I also needed to pick up 8 liters of oil to do some servicing on my cars.

The sales-people there were of course very sad, they had not seen the interview so I filled out some blanks they had in their grasp of the information given to us.

19:12 Saabs bankruptcy was approved by the district court of Vänersborg and the administrators Hans Bergqvist and Anne-Marie Pouteaux take over the management of Saab. Their first priority, to get the wages paid to the employees.

20:33 I started my 260 km drive back home, since I’m working christmas eve the point of going up to Trollhättan was to spend some time with my family and exchange gifts. Driving home I had the most strange feelings I have probably ever had in my entire life. The day felt strange, I had spent time with my friends, we had been working very hard, getting lots of inside facts before anyone else, it was almost fun… Having met Victor and gotten a form of closure of a drama that had lasted a very long time was a sort of relief. I think the best description I heard was that it had been like having a very sick relative laying in the hospital for a very long time. Not knowing if she would survive or not is painful enough, then to finally get the news a bit suddenly that she had died is sort of a relief whoever horrible the news might be.

But I don’t think he worst has passed. The worst is yet to come! If Saab is not sold and restarted the city of Trollhättan will in a few months time face the reality of poverty. People will not spend money on anything, christmas shopping is next to nonexistent and the big holiday sales will probably not raise the money the stores are so badly in need of. Subscriptions to newspapers, gym-cards etc will be canceled because people know that there are no new jobs waiting for them, despite how much the government tries to state this, the grim reality is that thousands and thousands of people will be and will continue to become un-employed because of this, house prices will fall, people will stop buying new cars, more people will become un-employed and at worst it could take 20-30 years for a city like Trollhättan to rise back again…

BUT, I’m still optimistic about the future, I have heard things, and learned of things today that makes me smile! I will go to sleep knowing that there are people out there, who are willing to do so much more than anyone can ever imagine! =)

Rolf Åbjörnsson says he has been approached by several interested parties. This has been told both to Swedish Government and the Saab Unions in Trollhättan. He could not say who the interested parties where. He sounded sincere and reasonable. Sounds like he will enter the stage when the bankruptcy has been properly filed and handled by the district court.
In my ears it sounded promising.
Keep calm and carry on! It is not completely over yet just new people…..
At 17:35 Annie Lööf on Swedish Radio confirms that there are interested parties who want to come into discussions with the people that will run the bankruptcy organization.

UPDATE* Rolf Åbjörnsson will most likely appear in the TV4 Morning Show. I had an interesting talk with him tonight. Guess he is now free to speak since the District Court in Vänersborg has filed and stamped the papers tonight. My guess is that we could very well have some breaking news tomorrow. Who are the present constellations with interest in Saab?

We will be writing short notices here live from the press conference! (also available on www.SaabsUnited.com)

1. blackest day in Saabs History
2. No way to work with GM
3. Even though GM would not be part of Saab Automobile, all new products developed by Phoenix, GM still not interested…
4. Only 200 million needed to get back on track, is because bulk of the investment would be done in future models.
5. 400 million Euro in the 50/50 joint venture, 200 million euro into Saab Automobile
6. Around 5 AM, statement from GM, no mater how the deal was done, GM would not agree
7. Youngman thought it was too risky to invest in Saab since GM would terminate the license of 9-3, 9-5 and 9-4x…
8. Youngman would have “bought” an empty factory for at least two years…
9. Having no funding in place, only way out is to file for bankruptcy
10. Sweden has very good rules, much better than chapter 11… A company in sweden in bankruptcy, can actually go out of bankruptcy, if a party comes and invests money into the company
11. Parties have showed interests, license agreements with GM must be re-negociated.
12. New name agreement needed to be negotiated with SAAB AB, but if its a strong argument, this might work as well
13. This is not necessarily the end…
14. Could be a new beginning, where Saab could rise again, like a phoenix out of the ashes
15. SWAN’s involvement is over though
16. VM will help the administrators
17. VM’s objective was to create beautiful cars and employ 3500 happy people in Trollhättan, this has now failed… makes him very sad…

Here are the audio files provided to us from a trusted source. The items discussed are most likely the same issues that Victor will discuss during the press conference.
They are both in .mov format:

• Part 1
• Part 2

SaabsUnited has exclusively listened into a market call from Knut Simonsson and Victor Muller and Matthias Siedl.

During the call Victor explained what has happened this morning, that he personally delivered the bankruptcy documentation to the district court in Vänersborg.

He also explained issues of warranty, Saab Parts is still very much in operations and all agreements with dealerships including warranty of parts are still valid. However all reimbursements of warranty operations for cars have been stopped until such time as the new administrator for the bankruptcy is able to re-start that as well.

In Sweden there are special regulations regarding bankruptcy which would allow a company to be completely reborn and re-started. And I’m happy to announce that a possible solution was hinted during the market call…

This was the reaction by Victor Muller this morning after having submitted the bankruptcy application to the district court of Vänersborg.

To TTELA Victor gives the following interview:

When was the decision taken?
- Early this morning, when GM replied to my e-mail about our suggested solution.

How do you feel about GM right now?
- How would you feel?

How did Youngman motivate that they would not invest the money promised?
- GM said that they would not support any investment from Youngman regardless if it was considered a loan or capital. Youngman could not disregard that threat.

How will this affect you personally?
- I am despaired and furious – at the same time…

Press-briefing by Victor Muller will take place at the main gate at 14:45 Central European Time. Live coverage here on SaabsUnited!

Whats going to happen now?

• The district court of Vänersborg is right now working with the bankruptcy application, when approved a press conference will be held at Saab where TimR, RikardH and Rune are right now waiting.
• SaabsUnited has been promised an interview with Victor Muller after the dust has settled where we will find out more details. Please e-mail your questions to him here.
• A bankruptcy administrator will be appointed and that person will look over what assets are still left in the company and determine their value.
• A voluntary bankruptcy will ensure payment of wages to the employees from the governmental fund much faster than a forced bankruptcy. This is the main reason why Saab chose this action this morning. The management needs to focus on their primary resource and that is the employees.
• Mats Emthen will be the bankruptcy administrator according to dagens industri.
• What actually happened last night was that Youngman was willing to invest money into Saab but GM forcefully stated that if any chinese investments were made into Saab, GM would cancel all current license agreements regarding the current 9-3, 9-5 and 9-4x. This of course scared Youngman into not investing in Saab. Anyone would understand it not wise to invest in a car company that is unable to build any cars. The new 9-3 we have learned is about 55% GM parts and technology, a conversion away from GM technology is possible according to our sources but it would take a considerable amount of time to achieve this.

Right now we’re very sad about this but we need to close comments to increase the performance of the server! The load is just too high right now and we need to prioritize the news reporting. We need to get news out there. Comments will open later tonight and we have also been promised an interview with Victor if he has time.

Any new updates to this site will be announced via Facebook, RSS and Twitter instantly so please don’t refresh the page every 5 min… =(

SPECIAL for today is a new page that you might have seen on the top right corner of the site beside the “home” page. This is a media page where RikardH and Rune will be uploading photos continuously during the day.

Saabs management has called all employees in for a meeting at 14:00. All production managers and staff managers are right now calling all employees to come back to Saab.

Saab has just filed for bankruptcy…