Things are still quiet from Saab, but there are a few things out there that are worth mentioning, even if they are not directly Saab related.
I think all of us remember that Geely had again after 2009 shown interest in taking over Saab (or just the best pieces, who knows) just a few weeks ago. WantChinaTimes report now that they are facing financial troubles:
The Chinese-language Capital Week, however, reported that Li and Geely Group have been stuck in a financial rut. Geely has reportedly started to contact private domestic and overseas equity funds, such as Carlyle and TPG, for fresh funding, in order to repay Goldman Sachs for high-yield bonds. Most of these private equity funds are cautious about the request, due to their concern over Geely’s ability to repay.
I’d most likely never go for a Volvo, still I hope that they can pull this through. We always said it is vital to have two automakers in Sweden to keep up the automotive cluster. So Volvo being alive and in Sweden is a good thing for Saab.
Talking about potential saviours, our friend Vladimir Antonov, or better, Snoras Bank seem to face some problems (from balticbusinessnews.com):
The bank operations which have been suspended after the appointment of temporary administrator will be renewed next Monday.
In its statement, the central bank says that “The analysis of information compiled for supervisory purposes revealed a poor quality of the assets of SNORAS Bank, and that the evaluation of assumed risk was inappropriate due to the lack of responsibility. The bank ignored the instructions of the Bank of Lithuania to reduce operational risks or treated these instructions formally.
There has been roumors about that for quite a while and it looks like there was some truth in it.
” poor quality of the assets of SNORAS Bank, and that the evaluation of assumed risk was inappropriate due to the lack of responsibility”
Well, that makes one thinking if there were some entities that were aware of that and for that reason VA was never given a chance to invest in SAAB…hum…
Dave, i don’t care much about SNORAS Bank, but how many European banks have had similar problems in the last years?
Maybe it’s SNORAS Bank, maybe it is just the whole banking system 😉
I think the Lithuanian Central Bank is acting pro-actively to
Which shows that at least the Lithuanian government has learned from the 2009 crisis.
“Maybe it’s SNORAS Bank, maybe it is just the whole banking system”
But $392 million of missing assets, and criminal investigations are something you do not see every day (even in these days)…
I don’t know, but after the 2009 crash everything is possible with all those uncontrolled Banks.
Well put — 2009 showed that the unthinkable can happen just about anytime.
Hmm, ciminal investigations? Didn’t the cause with IMF catch your attention? Ofcourse it is not a good thing though, but what news reported about criminal investigations against SNORAS?
“What news reported about criminal investigations against SNORAS”
It’s all over the news outlets. Different stories have been put out by different news agencies, but Associated Press puts it like this:
Lithuania has nationalized its fifth largest bank on suspicion of massive fraud and money laundering and opened an investigation into its former owners and managers.
Well, all this reportedly criminal stuff didn’t stop the Lithuanian authorities from announcing that the banking operations of Snoras will resume on Monday. Sounds to me like a bit of a storm in a glass of water. Or perhaps a ‘difference of opinion’ between someone at the bank and the Lithuanian officialdom.
Lithuania is reported to be a pretty corrupt place. Maybe the payoff wasn’t enough?
Ivo
We don’t do criminal investigations of bankers in the US anymore (apparently). The bankers are above such petty nonsense.
Well, of course none of the Russian oligarchs have made their money playing by the book. By western standards they are pretty much all more or less crocked.
Having said that, I too have some serious doubts that whether Antonov’s investment would have been the thing Saab needed. All the bankruptcies, missing moneys, criminal investigations, and barring of him practicing banking activities in UK, are all bit too much.
In March/April when Antonov’s bid for part ownership was on the table, Saab needed a relatively minor cash injection to get the wheels rolling again.
As I understood some of the papers presented in the recent past, if Saab had managed to keep the increase in sales going like they started, then they would have reached profitability by the end of this year.
In light of that, I frankly would not have cared where the money originated from. Gift horse. Mouth. Don’t look.
That said, the NDO (Riksgälden) approved Antonov, and they seem to be the only ones (aside from Antonov himself) to have commisioned an investigation into Antonov’s background.
Innocent… Until proven guilty.
+1
There has been so many points in the history of Saab (and I do not mean just couple of last years) when you could have played the “What if…”-game.
Who knows what would have happened if Antonov would have been allowed to invest to Saab. In the light of recent events it is no wonder that these investments were blocked (Snoras Bank’s owners and managers are suspected of “massive fraud and money laundering“).
And what comes to “innocent until proven guilty”, well… Neither of us know the details, but it is reasonable to say that in general when there is this much smoke, there almost always is a fire somewhere. For example Berlusconi has never been proven guilty (=convicted), but it would be rather silly to call him innocent 🙂
Now the question is that why VM did go to Antonov for the money to begin with? He must (or should) have known that there were some “uncertainties” with the guy, and there was a change that his investments would be blocked.
Regarding Berlusconi I think you should have that chat about his innocence with the Italian Supreme Court.
According to international and national laws he is innocent.
No matter how much smoke gets in your eyes.
That goes for Antonov too
And regarding uncertainties I think you should debate that with the “customers” of Lehman Brothers.
They should probably also have known the uncertanties
According to international and national laws he is innocent.
… and my whole point was that as Berlusconi (amongst others) has demonstrated, it does not mean that if you are not convicted that you would be innocent (and not broken any laws). Innocence and conviction are two very different things.
And regarding uncertainties I think you should debate that with the “customers” of Lehman Brothers. They should probably also have known the uncertanties
What does this have to do with whether VM should/could have known about the possibility that Antonov’s investments gets blocked, or not?
@moose
Innocence and conviction is exactly the same thing.
The rest is moral judgement
Regarding the possibility that VA would have been blocked, you connected the dots in a way that VM should have known that VA was a suspected criminal that would never get approved.
Which makes me wonder how Riksgälden could miss that same thing if it was so obvious and then clear VA as investor
@Khrisdk
Innocence and conviction is exactly the same thing. The rest is moral judgement.
We are going bit of topic, buy actually this is not true at all. Couple of examples:
– Berlusconi breaks the law, gets sued. He is in a position where he can retroactively change the law which he broke, and does not get convicted. Is he guilty of breaking the law? Absolutely. Is he innocent of the crime? Absolutely not. Does he get convicted? No.
– An investment broker uses an insider tip to make money in the stock market in US. When caught, he makes a deal and gives in his bosses. Is he guilty of breaking the law? Absolutely. Is he innocent of the crime? Absolutely not. Does he get convicted? No.
– and so on…
Regarding the possibility that VA would have been blocked, you connected the dots in a way that VM should have known that VA was a suspected criminal that would never get approved. Which makes me wonder how Riksgälden could miss that same thing if it was so obvious and then clear VA as investor
VM did not need to estimate whether VA is guilty or not. His task was to estimate whether he would be accepted as a investor or not. In this task he failed.
If one would be in to conspiration theories, one could theorize that maybe VM wanted VA as investor because it would have been beneficial for him personally, and for this reason he did not look for an investor which would have been more likely accepted. And just to be clear – I’m not saying that this really happened!
Just for fun:
If the Law is changed retroactively, then he did not break it, as it is by now not illegal then.-.
Which shows that history is not always the exact science that it is supposed to be..
Of well..semantics.
I also think that Belusconi is Crook.
He’s just been clever enough never to be convicted. And Is as such innocent in the yes of the Law
But the phonetaps on him gave us some info on how he views Ms. Merkels lower backside 😀
I bet there are quite a few reporters out there who are mourning the loss of juicy comments and scandals from Berlusconi 🙂
Why are you defending a 36 year old oligarch banker worth supposedly $300 million?
Look at what caused the takeover: $400m “missing assets”, and the fact that bank snoras tried to move virtually all its lithuanian central bank deposits offshore earlier this week.
Lithuania guarantees all depositors to 100 000 eur, so once again you have privatized the profits, or in this case “profits” and socialized the losses. (and Lithuania is hardly a wealthy country)
This story will make interesting reading once they start connecting the dots.
Because we are awaiting the connection of the dots.
Which none of us will never fully do…
Correct..
We make assumptions and theories according to our personal persuasion.
And western bankers aren’t crooked? There were billions (maybe trillions) of dollars of fraud in the US mortgage securities crisis. About all you cans say is that the western bankers were more sophisticated in their crookedness.
I would rather expect here at SU.com an overview of the situation with some personal thoughts from SU crew just as Jeff used to do not long time ago.
But aparently this pissed off some people and we are now reading non related Around Saab snippets to fill in the space for some 200 visitors constantly checking in.
Is it just me , or this site lost its essence being taken over by commenters with very patriotical views both from Sweden and US ?
I think the moment is now to show some support to Victor Muller and SAAB team who are trying to negotiate the best deal (and I have no doubt they will get the good deal for SAAB).
And remember one thing, Victor knows how to handle GM , he already did the impossible once.
Hold your horses on Geely. It may have been reported here that Geely was interested and there were rumors of meetings?
True!
Later the statement from Geely was clear that someone in Swedish government approached them and to be polite they agreed to meet, however, they were never interested.
This was part of the “Lofalk sneaks off to meet in secret” conspiracy that later evolved into Lofalk just running up his bill as a hired gunslinger riding herd on Saab?
Probably what turns off Geely or any serious investor is that you need a flow chart the size of the Great Wall to determine who owns what, who has contracts to do what to whom. Face it, the company is now a Medusa of creditors all with outstretched hands; from the ad agency who started demands for payment to the guy who “cuts the keys”. That is another sore spot, there are so many who can’t get keys. It took me over a month when the dealer lost them.