From cnbc.com (with the help Saablog-in)
SWEDISH AUTOMOBILE, SAAB The two Chinese companies that have agreed to buy a stake in Saab have agreed to guarantee a loan to the company, daily Dagens Nyheter wrote on Thursday, quoting unnamed sources. The paper said the decision by Zhejiang Youngman Lotus Automobile Co. and Pangda Automobile Trade Co Ltd had been motivated by Chinese authorities easing the process for the two to take stakes in Saab. The chance of quick decision by the authorities and therefore of Saab getting new money, has risen, one source said. Late on Wednesday, Saab parent Swedish Automobile reported a first-half operating loss of 201.5 million euros ($290.1 million) and warned it could lose the battle to stay afloat.
I would says this is a speculative rumour as I can’t even find the article from Dagens Nyheter they talk about.
I hope this is true as I was wondering what SAAB could bring in as collateral at this stage !!!!
Thank you Ladies and Gentlemen in China 🙂
Holy crap! This is huge guys … let’s hold on to our seats ….
Hold on to your lug nuts, it’s time for an overhaul!
🙂
Time for that CHAMPANGE very soon perhaps 😉
Pang Da & Youngman are not allowed to invest until they get an OK from the Chinese government. Every investment larger than $50 million needs to be approved.
So it is not very likely that Pang Da & Youngman will come to the rescue at this point in time.
BoeBoe,
maybe I’m wrong but it doesn’t look like an investment to me, it is only a loan guarantee.
But I’m sure they can guarantee a loan for Saab if they wish to do so, no?
I’m too slow 😉
as I have understodd, Pang Da & Youngman are not allowed to invest until they get an OK from the Chinese government. Every investment larger than $50 million needs to be approved.
Have the government given them an exemption perhaps.
Otherwise it is not very likely that Pang Da & Youngman will come to the rescue at this point in time.
But I sure hope I´m wrong.
Another way of typing it …..
I think the DN sources are correct. When it get close to a deal there are to many people involved to keep it secret. If Pangda and Youngman are serious in their interest to get involved in SAAB (which I think they are) it is obviously in their interest to keep the company afloat until the deal is approved.
The way this makes it sound is that the NDRC is actually trying to help ease the transaction on the Chinese side. I’ve learned that unnamed sources from China aren’t the most trustworthy in the last few weeks, so please take this with a grain of salt (hopefully a very very small one).
Please let’s try to give this deal space and not get hysterical dissecting every piece of it. The only thing we can do right now is wait and hope it all goes to plan, there’s quite literally nothing good that comes out of us blowing every news detail out of proportion. Don’t read into this more than what is reported here (like other blogs have, speculatively reporting that the Chinese are somehow guaranteeing the bridge loan from a Euro bank), take this at face value. Endeavor has a large toolbox to work with here, and there are multiple prongs through which they’re tackling this problem. Knowing what I know, I’m incredibly confident that the team has the ability to get these deals wrapped up. But what happens once that’s done? How will Saab rebuild confidence in the brand?
Now that is something the SaabsUnited community will be able to do. Our competition has obviously been delayed due to the standstill at Swedish Automobile, but rest assured we hope to provide the jump start that Saab Cars needs to get rolling again. Let’s all keep ourselves in forward gear, and continue moving forward.
+1
Hello!
Why are the stocks halted? I don´t know how the stockmarket works.
Daniel
Sorry, not halted anymore.
It`s a funny old world we live in. Here is SAAB struggling desperately to find funds to survive and yet;
DHL (one of SAABs suppliers, no doubt owed money) find £40,000,000 to sponsor Manchester Unted FC, who have such crippling debts that make SAAB look like a minor player in the debts league.
Vladimir Antonov has recently bought Portsmouth FC for an undisclosed sum, but thought to be around £17,000,000 – in spite of previously being prevented from opening another business by the UK Financial Authoroities.
Romeo Abramovich is the famous owner of Chelsea FC (among many other football interests), which has cost him a reported £600,000,000 so far.
There must be countless other equally annoying examples of vast amounts of money squandered on what are, to them, hobbies and playthings,by extremely rich people that could have been funneled into SAAB.
None of these “investments” are likely to show any return – wouldn`t it make more sense for them to invest in something worthwhile that stands a very good chance of showing a return in the not too distant future? Yes, of course I mean SAAB!
The DHL is an advertising deal. Seeing DHL on Man Utd shirts is exposure. Regarding VA and Abramovich I will not comment much, because the kindest thing I can say is that those deals are “penis extenders” for them (i.e., people with money seeking public projection).
SAAB, however (especially sad in the case of SAAB) is not playing in a sector where, except if one wants to build and try and market a 1 million dollar sports car, investments are made for emotional reasons. Things are what they are, even though things sometimes reflect a world that is apparently upside down…
Apologies: marketing and not advertising, as there’s logistics involved as well. And not advertising DHL’s name in a shirt but in training kits, I believe. 😉
If true, I believe this marks an extraordinary development. It was always the case that, barring a sell-off by another manufacturer, Saab represented effectively the ‘last chance’ to buy into a European brand. Conversely, the noises many have believed they have heard coming out of China have indicated that the Chinese authorities are quite set against further acquisitions and growth of additional car manufacturing entities.
Furthermore, as has been pointed-out often, some Chinese companies have quite deliberately played a game of waiting until the fat lady has sung before picking up assets.
So, if true, this represents a great coup for VM, and a very positive sign for China in general. And, yes, I do realise that the Saab brand will die if the company does, which rather focusses the mind. But the Chinese authorities have not necessarily seen that as an impediment in the past!
If true, one would have to be impressed by the negotiating skills of those involved. And a better token of the Chinese long-term commitment would be hard to imagine.
In my mind I can see the arguments for a Chinese move at this time. As skwdenyer said “Saab represented effectively the ‘last chance’ to buy into a European brand” and if put into b-y the “brand” is most likely lost forever.
+1
Obviously I do not know what is in the contracts between GM and Saab regarding use of GM’s intellectual property. But it’s obvious that whatever licenses or rights Saab has to the IP – and by extension whatever rights Saab has to technological developments or refinements of that IP – are not transferable to a third party. This is true even if Saab goes through reorganization or is liquidated in bankruptcy.
So — Saab’s existence as a going concern is the only way for the Chinese to access the technology. There is no incentive for the Chinese companies to wait until Saab is liquidated and pick up the individual pieces cheaper. Quite the opposite, the Chinese companies have a real incentive to issue these loan guarantees (and keep Saab alive) if their ultimate goal is to make cars on the Phoenix platform.
For this and other reasons, I have always believed that something would work out in the end.
Strong argument indeed Greg, here’s hoping.
I think that is some of the strongest arguments for Saab as an ongoing concern
I think Jeff wrote a longer piece on this a while ago, but it’s a little hard to find.
I can’t even find it but I remember writing it 😛
All of the arguments for why Saab is the brand with 9 lives (Saab loves 9s after all) will need to be presented here soon. Makes a great basis for an ad campaign, no? 😉
After the deal is completed and Saab’s in calmer waters, we can stop flailing around and focus on marketing Saab the right way to other Saab fans. That’s what the legacy of SU and our contribution to getting customers back into dealers and cars again will be.
I can see the slogan now:
“At SAAB our IP is so innovative our company simply cannot die”
Good thinking!
Am i the only one who thinks that this has just turned into the biggest freakshow ever…..i have never heard of such a dysfunctional company like saab…..everything is just soo hard. I am at the point that I would rather that SAAB goes under then have the brand totally FUBARed.
Dont hate med becuse Im honest……….i love SAAB
Ha, this is fairly conventional for a startup like Saab. I imagine there will be a CNBC special about this in the next 2-3 years. Tesla has one, after all, and their saga looks even crazier, yet they’re sitting on a mountain of cash right now and about to roll out the Model S next year. They had an even steeper hill to climb (no factory, no money, no confidence, no proven plan for success).
Saab has a very strong business case. They just need cash. No freakshow here, just a lot of dramatic headlines to sell papers that makes everyone go a little nuts. We have to report it, because otherwise you’ll go to other sites and the cohesiveness of SU that we all love will be fractured. We continue to do our best to keep everyone informed and righting wrongs where we see them.
hahahah I just love that you call SAAB a startup!…..It´s been a startup since the 1940´s hahaha. But you have to admit, the amount of deals and ups and down do make it kind of a freakshow compared to moste car companies.
SAAB did have a “fully funded businessplan” and it failed, can’t be very strong then. Dont get me wrong I belive in SAAB but not the business plan, I think koenigsegg’s plan would have been much better for saab and the cash-situation.
Wasn’t it the Koenigsegg plan? Slightly reworked, but mostly the same
Not really, the koenigsegg plan was for 80 000 units/year max. They whanted to move Saab into jaguar land with high-end car.
9-3, 9-4, 9-5, no more than 80 000 units of all those cars. perfect for SAAB, but then I could never buy one……soo it worked out for the best….kind of.
On the product portfolio that GM left for the buyers?
I was never really interested in the Koenigsegg deal, so I never paid much attention to details.
I just seemed to just run smoothly… until they pulled out.