SWEDISH AUTOMOBILE REACHED CONDITIONAL AGREEMENT ON MAIN TERMS SALE SPYKER BUSINESS
Zeewolde, The Netherlands, 29 September 2011 – Swedish Automobile N.V. (Swan) announces it has reached conditional agreement with North Street Capital, LP (North Street) about the main terms of the sale of the Spyker sportscar business.
The indicative terms of the transaction envisage net proceeds to Swan of approximately EUR 32 million if and when the sale would become wholly unconditional. Since the Spyker assets are pledged to Tenaci Capital B.V. (Tenaci) the net proceeds of a sale will be used to redeem Swan’s debt to Tenaci.
North Street has a long term view on the development of the Spyker brand as an ultra high-end super sportscar manufacturer and has the resources to see such development through. Victor R. Muller will remain on as CEO and the continuity of Spyker’s relationships with all its stakeholders and clients is warranted.
There can be no assurance that the negotiations can be completed successfully and that final agreement can be reached on the above or different terms.
North Street is a Greenwich, Connecticut USA based private equity firm. North Street managing partner Alex Mascioli is a life long race car driver.
“Victor R. Muller will remain on as CEO ” – that’s a worry. I would have said selling Spyker was a good move as VM needs to focus entirely on Saab. Hopefully this envisages a time when Saab has a new CEO and VM returns to Chairman role?
Belfast,
Saab will get a new CEO, no worry about that.
Great! 🙂
I suspect that many parties would want VM to depart completely once this mess is sorted out.
Off topic but anyway interesting news.
Maud Olofsson and Andreas Carlgren are leaving the government
“Lööf sade också att hon ser företagsamhet och teknik som en viktig drivkraft för att skapa en hållbar ekonomi.”
Great, I think that must be good for Saab.
Since the Spyker assets are pledged to Tenaci Capital B.V. (Tenaci) the net proceeds of a sale will be used to redeem Swan’s debt to Tenaci. Could someone knowing the Tenaci/SWAN (Spyker/Saab) corporate arrangements better than I do explain what this means? To me it seems that the money coming in from the sale of Spyker is not going to Saab/SWAN. Instead it is going to Tenaci which is “51% owned by Victor Muller, and 49% by un-named shareholder” (Antonov?) (http://saabsunited.saabklubben.se/2011/01/vladimir-antonov-in-svd-se-news-today.html). I think that it is also quite logical that Victor would take home the money which is made by… Read more »
May be he has to do this to be able to keep his part of SWAN?
moose, ttela has a good answer for your question. But putting it short. This money seems to be planned to pay some of the debts of SWAN, in this case the debts to Tenaci. But as Tenaci was, in my point of view, some kind of legal construct to get the money to be able to buy Saab, the money from North Street will go to SWAN from there to Tenaci and from there to their creditors and not to VM. All in All the cash situation of SWAN or Saab won’t improve with this money, but SWAN will have… Read more »
All in All the cash situation of SWAN or Saab won’t improve with this money, but SWAN will have less debt, which is not bad either. From SWAN’s perspective whether money was owed on the paper to Tenaci or not was quite irrelevant. Sure it makes the SWAN’s financial books look nicer, but it’s not like Tenaci would have applied Saab to bankcrupty :). From Tenaci’s (and Victor Muller’s) point of view this is however crucial. We do not know how Victor/Tenaci raised the money to buy Saab, but I’m sure that if the money was from investors (and not… Read more »
Well, Banks love nice financial books 😉
But yes, what you are saying is very much how I understand it.
Gents, the following issues makes me feel a little bit worry: 1. Saab biggest problem at the moment is the factory stoppage 2. Saab must restart production asap 3. Saab owns hell a lot of money to subcontractors and the crucial think that was even annaunced is to work towards the factory restart. So now the questions: is Tenaci a subcontractor??? Would Tenaci apply for bankruptcy if not being paid at the moment? Is this dept clearance crucial for a factory restart? And finally what will the media tell again about Saab and VM if they see that VM (as… Read more »
@ Meller: I think you ask good questions that deserves to be answered.
Meller, the factory stoppage can be seen as the result of high expenses in form of expensive loans and similar. By paying off some of those loans, they create an easier path to profitability once production finally gets moving again.
They may not be too keen on restarting production at this point until the sticky issues have all been resolved.
Besides, isn’t Guy Lofalk the one in charge now?
As far as I see it Tenaci was quite literally the first in line for payment as that was the entity initially created to transfer GM to Saab. Unless the debts of a subcontractor go back to the pre-sale dates, then I don’t see how they could have been in line first for payment.
Cut VM a break here, he had to go out and broker this deal himself from the looks of it, he deserves to pay back his financiers here too.
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RUNE
Only the bits of reconstruction….NOT Swan
@Meller Victor is a business man. As much as especially some here would like to believe, he did not buy Saab just to save Saab. He saw an business opportunity, and took it. That’s it. He might have liked the brand, but that is not a reason for anyone to to potentially lose millions of euros of (your own?) money. You don’t get wealthy as Victor by being stupid. More importantly you don’t stay wealthy unless you protect your wealth. This is exactly what is happening here. When Victor bought Saab he protected his personal wealth with this kind of… Read more »
“… by selling the company he has found and invested in to …”
Co-founded; with Maarten de Bruijn, the engineer and designer. He left the company sometime around 2005. But VM was the investor at the time.
What about Vladimir Antonov ?
He had to buy Spyker ==> no more ?
Is he definitly out of business with SAAB ?
His long silence is troubling ? Even in Twitter where he was quite active, there’s no news
Anyone has some information?
Car&Driver states that Spyker is already sold, and has an interview with the new owner of Spyker Cars.
the managing partner of North Street Capital is called Alex Mascioli, and has a very interesting garage.
Nothing wrong with that! I am sure the Saabs in his garage enjoy the company. 🙂
Cool, since no one would assume the new owner of Spyker would necessarily have, or even care for Saabs.
God, I’m sorry I looked at the Car&Driver article. How can a C/D staff member be so clueless and uninformed, yet write like he’s an authority? Found this in comments: e30og wrote on 09/29/2011 at 03:56 PM thanks for clarifying. is Swedish Automotive state owned or private? Justin Berkowitz wrote on 09/29/2011 at 03:59 PM C/D Staff Private in theory, but the government made it huge loans as a bailout when it was going broke. Then SA went broke anyway and went into Sweden’s version of bankruptcy. And there it sits, theoretically reorganizing, cutting costs, selling off assets (like Spyker)… Read more »
TobiasE September 29, 2011 at 11:37 said Off topic but anyway interesting news. Maud Olofsson and Andreas Carlgren are leaving the government Lets hope Maud isnt gonna be the new CEO of Saab! I personally dont think selling Spyker is going to help Saab one buit as I am sure any money gained will be used by VM to pay back the money he borrowed from VA to buy Saab in the first place. We are still here folks and the fat lady has her jaw wired shut and is slimming down as we speak. Must be a lot of… Read more »
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Nah….remember she said she don’t know about car making’