by TimR
February 7, 2012 in News
Some US media have mistaken the US Heritage collection with the Saab Cars Museum collection and claimed that it wasn’t saved but due to be sold out anyway. Well that is not true and on the Hemmings blog you can read more about the cars that are due to be auctioned out…
by TimR
February 7, 2012 in News
For decades ANA in Trollhättan has been Saab’s primary and biggest dealer in the world. ANA managed the whole company car fleet of more than 2000 cars for Saab for many years. ANA also built police cars from Saabs as well as other special emergency veichles and nature-gas conversion on Saab 9-3 biopowers which made them run on three different fuels.
ANA has now received the honor by the bankruptcy administrators to build the last Saabs. 47 9-3 convertibles remain half built inside the Saab factory, these will now be completed by ANA. Joachim Lind, CEO at ANA sees this a great honor and privilege.
ANA a few days also received the honor to build a brand new type of electric car, the Z-Bee which was designed by the previous Saab engineer Ola Granlund but also with other great upstanding engineers and technicians.
On the sad side ANA might now have to move from the facilities in which have housed them for decades. Due to a dispute between between ANA and GMAC that owned the facilities regarding rent ANA has decided to retreat into their other facilities at Betongvägen in Trollhättan and to their facilities in Vänersborg.
In the future they hope to add another premium brand into their inventory and build brand new facilities on another location in Trollhättan.
Its sad that this has to happen but ANA has more or less been standing on it own for almost a year and due to Saab’s bankruptcy they need to find something else to work with and hopefully once again add Saab to their inventory if Saab is brought back to life again.
by TimR
February 7, 2012 in News
This morning the bankruptcy administrators held another press-conference via telephone, they made some interesting claims which was reported by P4 Väst.
First one that they are primarily interested in selling Saab as a whole, which may not include the other companies within Saab, but rather the production facility to start with.
The terms for joining the game are simply, the only thing a company has to do is to place a serious bid.
by TimR
February 7, 2012 in News
A small news statement from dagens industri this morning states that Mahindra now has placed a bid for Saab.
by till72
February 6, 2012 in Editorial, News
As we could see on di.se the receivers again stressed that their goal is to sell Saab as a whole. This means that nothing has changed in their attitude recently. The same article mentions that another bidder has placed a bit without disclosing its identity. Rest assured that there are a lot of things happening behind the scenes at the moment and I am pretty happy that those things are kept there. It is an indication that those things are serious.
Some reports/rumors we could read last week told us that there are bids for parts of Saab. Is that a surprise? No, not at all. Those who’d like to get a piece of the cake of course try to mention that just in case the sale-as-a-whole thing should fall apart. And even if it is not a nice thought the positive thing about that is that is shows the value Saab still represents. Because of that many parties placed such bids on Saab. The local rival also is one of them. But even if a bit of rivalry can be fun I would not want to take it as far as stating that Volvo wants to butcher Saab. They are just doing what many more are doing, too. No need to start bashing them as they are not the ones who decide if Saab is sold in pieces. In the end I could imagine that Volvo would be happier with a Saab that is alive. There are synergies they could explore and those are worth more than a few machines they can buy cheaply.
I have been one of those stating pretty clearly that GM will refuse to give their licenses to any buyer since it was not supporting their own interests and I still think that is true. Still, reports said that parties interested in Saab are in talks with GM on licensing. This seems to be a contradiction on first look. But if you give it another look there could be parties who have somthing to offer to GM. Not just money, someting else that can be interesting enough to let them change their mind or at least give it a second thought. GM is driven by shareholder value, so if you got the right package, you might get them on your side.
Right now nothing is certain but everything is negotiable. Keep the faith and be careful when it comes to rumors. This may take a bit more time but if it leads to a proper result it is sure worth it.
by Trued
February 5, 2012 in News
ovloV Information director tells Www.di.se that they follow closely what happens with Saab and that they have ongoing discussions with the bankruptcy lawyers.
They are interested in 14000 machines, tooling and test equipment.
Let’s hope that the lawyers stick to their initial ideas of selling Saab as ONE entity to ONE buyer who wants to build complete cars in Trollhättan.
ovloV= the other car maker in Göteborg/Gothenburg, it’s a habit I have never to write the arch rivals name in printing.
by till72
February 3, 2012 in Editorial, News, Rumors
Yesterday saw a short moment of hooray as it was reported that Youngman placed a bid on Saab. Later on it came through that the administrators were, to say the least, indifferent towards the bid and that hooray died again. Tough, but it was maybe just another lesson not to get too excited about news unless they announce a definete deal.
As the receivers said there are five parties in the game who want to take over Saab as a whole. To me this is the best news and my hope is fed from that statement. I’d expect many more to be around who are, just like Semcon, interested in bits. Despite that, the last statement from the receivers said that they try to sell Saab as a whole. And as far as they don’t state something else this is still valid. I may not agree with all of their moves but they know that a complete sale to someone who offers a future to the Saab brand in Trollhättan would be the most desired outcome.
Regarding those rumors that they are already on the way to split Saab – take them as what they are: rumors. There are so many floating around right now. Some come from “people with insight” who like to be heared, some may be conclusions by the press. Everybody colors those rumors in a way they support their position or view of course. We and you have to be pretty careful about this and that’s why I already told you in my last post that those conclusions are based on rumors.
The receivers and the interested parties are at work, discussions are ongoing on various levels. Lots of white noise are surrounding this and it is a challenge to find those pieces that have substance. Some people have asked us why we do not run one or another story. This is exactly the reason for it. We are working hard to bring the essence to you.
I did not want to use that term anymore but keep calm and carry on all we can do at the moment.
by till72
February 3, 2012 in News
While one of our sources told us that the bid was rejected, sverigesradio.se reports that the receivers are indifferent towards Youngman’s bid.
P4 Väst can now reveal how the bankruptcy trustees for Saab have stipulated conditions which may stop a complete solution for the bankruptcy case, according to several sources.
- In practice, the trustees have set conditions which make it impossible to conduct a complete sale of Saab in one piece, according to a source with good insight into the process.
The Saab bankruptcy trustees have recieved lots of criticism since being appointed on dec 19, and now they are facing the worst criticism so far. Because in the beginning of this week, Youngman placed a bid on the company – a bid worth several billion kronor, and meaning production in Trollhättan. According to sources to Dagens Eko, it would mean Youngman needing to employ more than 1000 people.
Read the rest of this entry →
by till72
February 2, 2012 in News
This afternoon I got to know that GMAC chose BCA to sell their leftover Saabs. The auction started today and ends on the 07th of February at 14:59. Those 25 cars are surely worth a look, they are all more or less new 9-3 and a few 9-5. The cars will be available for pick up at BCA Hamburg 7 days after auction ends.
As far as I was told this auction is open to everyone but to make sure about the details on how to bid cou can check their international site. They have offices in many European countries so it should not be a problem to buy the cars within Europe.
Go get one…
by Trued
February 2, 2012 in News
First bid, according to National Swedish Radio News/EKOT, was sent to the lawyers some days ago.
1000 workers need for production. 9-3 can be built without GM involvement alongside with Lotus cars.
—
Swedish TV4 tonight reports this:
Still no comments from the lawyers.
Johan Nylen, Youngmans swedish contact says “No comments” first but then goes on, “Plans for immediate restart of Saab, discussions with significant people and suppliers are ongoing”, according to Nylen.
by Trued
February 2, 2012 in News
Ex-CEO Peter Smedman of Ackordscentralen has sent complaints to JO, about the way the Saab bankruptcy has been handled.
The Ombudsmen for Justice (JO) or the Parliamentary Ombudsmen to give them their official title are elected by the Swedish Riksdag (Parliament) to ensure that public authorities and their staff comply with the laws and other statutes governing their actions. The Ombudsmen exercise this supervision by evaluating and investigating complaints from the general public, by making inspections of the various authorities and by conducting other forms of inquiry that they initiate themselves.
Peter Smedman is very critical to:
a. The way the three lawyers where appointed
b. Disqualification issues regarding one or more of the lawyers
The two governmental agencies who Peter Smedman wants JO to look at are:
- Tingsrätten i Vänersborg (The Vänersborg Court)
- Tillsynsmyndigheten i Konkurser (Control agency for bancruptcy supervision)
by till72
February 1, 2012 in News
Automotive News feature an article asking if the 9-4x could be rebadged under another GM brand as it is such a great vehicle. While I can understand that they liked it on their test drive I’d hate to see it rebadged. That thought came up as the image of a 9-4x with a German GG number plate surfaced a while ago. But GM seems to be done with that issue if we believe a well known spokesman:
“Our plant in Mexico has already adjusted to the end of 9-4X production,” GM spokesman Jim Cain said today.
In the end this adds to the statements we heared before that GM won’t grant licenses for the cars based on their IP. Even if this quote is not totally clear I hope it also means that we won’t see the 9-4x rebadged as some Opel or Chevrolet crossover.
by till72
February 1, 2012 in News
There was a link to an inautonews.com article dropped in comments. It is talking about difficulties for any Saab bid because a deal with Semcon is said to be in place regarding the sale of some parts of Saab. I think this needs some clarification (again).
As we already reported here a few days ago there was indeed a deal with Semcon intended but Hemfosa, who own part of the real estate in Saab refused to give their ok. Like us, they’d prefer to see Saab sold as a whole.
So nothing new in this report if you read SU. I just wanted to get to this before rumors based on this report start floating again.
by TimR
January 31, 2012 in News
Today the city council of Trollhättan got rid of all formalities and took the real and final decision to actually save the Saab cars museum. Only one party (folkpartiet) the liberals actually opposed the proposed plan.
by TimR
January 31, 2012 in News
The legendary brit program named Top Gear is preparing a tribute to Saab covering “over 50 years of Saab production” . And the production has contacted the legendary Saab Owners Club for helping them by providing cars .At this moment we can’t say nothing more . “Following the their approach to us a few weeks back we have now supplied almost all of the cars for 2 days of location filming.
However, although some of us were present even we do not know the full content of the film so it will be a bit of a surprise to all of us. It will, we are sure, contain some of the normal Top Gear humour so we don’t all expect to escape unscathed! We are assured that, overall, Saab will come out looking good.”
From Saablog-in
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