According to www.ttela.se and www.di.se tuesday morning the new twist is somewhat like this.
A new offer is presented to GM by Youngman and PangDa. In return they get the licenses for 9-3, NG 9-5 plus the possibility to buy 9-4x.
Guy Lofalk and the Swedish Government ready for heading to Detroit without Victor Muller.
The sources say that GM is not in a hurry to finalize anything. Same sources say that “The ball is now with GM. We get a positive answer and negotiations picks up, or a no and in that case Saab goes belly-up”
Youngman has sent fundings to Saab to cover for this months salaries.
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Guess more will unfold as the daylight slowly enlightens Sweden today!
Fingers crossed! Lets hope they work something reasonable out.
Links ?
http://di.se/Artiklar/2011/11/22/251623/GM-har-inte-brattom/
Somewhat strange news concerning GM’s “We won’t negotiate with the Chinese”-comment, but still good news. I doubt that GM would care about whether a representative from the Swedish government sits in the room or not, though…
Guy Lofalk may count as representative for Saab so it should be ok for GM.
I’m not entirely sure that I am understanding this correctly. So Youngman and Pang Da are now negotiating to buy Saab without the GM tech? (Licences and 9-4X)?
No – I was actually reading it the same way, but have in the meantime checked the sources (ttlea+di) and this is not the case. The Chinese are – on the contrary – giving a bid to GM for the rights. But GM has no hurry …
Ah, I see. GM is in no hurry? When have they ever been in a hurry? GM is a big old dinosaur, and dinosaurs aren’t able to move very fast 😛
The funny thing is, they definitely seemed to be in a hurry to reject the 100% takeover by YMPD…
🙁
+1
Of course, I would have done the same thing, never accept the first offer…
The original article says that YMPD has made an offer to buy the rights for the current models and to be able to buy the 9-4X from GMs factory in Mexico.
This news post was probably put together in a rush 😉
+1
Please, Trued…do a 1 minute re-read to correct cryptic phrases like I return the licenses plus 9-4x.
In this case it’s the gist of the message and it had me guess multiple times what you actually meant…(no offense).
Rush? You bet the 9-5 is in the workshop and I had to catch the “Mining-Train” (Subway to get to work).
I am speachless ! God please help SAAB, as it turn out that Sweden already planed for the oposite.
This is good news!! Go YMPD!!
I fail to see what the good news is. Hitting your child’s head against a wall repeatedly and threatening your ex husband that if it doesn’t let you put it in a orphelinat, this last time will be lethal, it’s a sign of mental disease in my eyes. Putting out this kind of statement like “We get a positive answer and negotiations picks up or a no and in that case Saab hopes belly-up” is ridiculous coming from the Swedish Government source. GM sells 2 billions of cars a year in China via their JV with SAIC and they will… Read more »
Are you for real? If this fails with ympd SAAB is gone when should you and SU crew realize that? This is the last Chance!
Are you entirely sure that YMPD 100% is the right deal for SAAB?
If you would have followed the developments you would have realised that they failed to deliver what they have commited for , and instead they played the well known dirty game of “brinksmanship” (thanks Chris :)) to get hold of 100% of SAAB.
What makes you think they will not do that again pretty soon, and that they will commit to their plans this time?
This is not much in the way of news, I give you that but your way of arguing is over the top. The good news lies in the fact that YMPD are approaching GM with actual proposals. What GM makes of those remains to be seen. And I don’t understand why GM would have to break anything with SAIC by allowing Saab to sell, and produce cars in China. You say it yourself GM sell over 2 million cars so far Saab hasn’t reached 1,000 cars in China, with PangDa and local production they could a few years down the… Read more »
Well Chinese produce everything in millions units provided they have the technology and the know how.
GM sells 2 millions there not because their cars are extremely performant, but because they are producing them in China. SAAB’s plan for China sells was on purpose highly underestimated if the cars are to be produced in China and having Pang Da as dealer network.
GM was not born yesterday unfortunately and they have a pretty good insight in the Chinese market by now.
I assume you realize that GM is the second largest if not the largest producer in China. They have a 10-15 year headstart on Saab in the market. Do you really think that all you need to do is to build factory and you can produce and sell millions of cars?? 😉 Saab will be flyspeck on the windshield that is the Chinese carmarket, GM is a big fat chicken in comparison. GM stands only to gain from a good relationship with Saab. So they lose a few thousand sales in China, so what. If they would own up and… Read more »
Grumpy, I realize that.But one usually overestimate what they can do in a year but underestimate what they can do in 10 years. Let’s not forget that GM still holds $326 million prefered shares in SAAB. A 100% Chinese buyout will make GM the largest sponsor of another Chinese Car manufacturing JV. SAIC could simply oppose that deal , regardless of the volume , on the simple fact that they could have signed exclussivity agreements for China with GM when they setteled the Chinese JV. So it may be not just IP licencing and SAAB threatening GM sales over in… Read more »
The real twist will be when GM decide to not allow Saab to be sold to anyone! My guess is that GM’s beancounters are busy calculating how Saab would affect GM’s profit and what GM can earn by acquire 100% of Saab again. Lets face it, GM want Saab’s engineers and all innovations that come out of Trollhättan and the profit they can make from actual Saab cars wouldn’t hurt them either. GM knows that Saab made profits but moved money to the low tax country USA instead. This is exactly what has been in the news lately in Sweden… Read more »
GM has their own issues with European operations, mainly Opel. Saab hardly registers on their balance sheet. There’s a few automotive news articles about this that we’ll post here and reflect on later today.
Don’t underestimate the scope of GM’s problems in Europe. Opel, despite new models like the Insignia and Astra, is constantly loosing market share and is a lossmaker for the group, probably for years to come. To get the approval for restructuring in 2009, Opel signed a job guarantee till 2014 for its German operations. Thus, if the sales volumes will fall due to European recession, Opel will make huge losses, probably in 1bn+ range per annum. GM’s decision was not to allow Opel to diversify its markets, i.e. to export to the US or China, in order to protect its… Read more »
GM have not the first time to lose millions of dollars. I do not think that any loss of “negligible” 350 million may have a strong impact on them…
This isn’t new news, Jorgen is just presenting it as such. The offer was submitted Friday. We covered it this weekend. DI and TTela are just getting to reporting the news. DI’s anonymous source contradicts what our own are saying with regard to GM agreeing upon 100% ownership. We’ll see what happens.
If your source is vm as many times before I am not suprised that he says that! He is side stepped.
Not VM. Not NSC either. GM sources. Just for the record, VM has given us very, very little the past few months, if anything.
We believe in the Saab!!!
From Russia.
the Chinese are masters in copying things. why can’t they buy SAAB WITHOUT the GM IP, and put in their IP, which (surely) they developed in a hurry. they can, because see what they made of the old 9-5, and it took them just 3 months or so…. would Chinese technology make Saab an inferior product? i don’t think so. there is more Chinese stuff in cars than you may think. and if buying Saab without GM IP means no 9-4x, so be it. but hey: has that ever been a (real) Saab after all? oh well…just wait and see… Read more »
The 9-4X is the best Saab I’ve ever driven.
Someone here posted vids of the crash tests of the Chinese clone of the BMW didn’t they? Along side was the vid of the real BMW crash test. The clone folded like a cheap suit. You can make a “copy” but that is like that breakfast cracker they made using a blend of “recycled paper fiber” instead of wheat and rice flour. It looked like a cracker but yech. To make a duplicate vehicle aside from looks, that would compete in a true international market would take ages to do. Just the casting process for the metals in the block,… Read more »
Chinese IP? Seriously? Chopsticks and Ming vases do not a car make.
I think we should start writing e-mails to the White House again and ask the US as shareholder of GM to speed things up with Saab. At least I sent some mails back in 2009 / 2010. Maybe it helps.
Unless we can get 25,000 signatures on a White House online petition, it’s probably not worth it. That said, GM is fairly independent from the US gov’t, and Dan Akerson has the final say on this one, not politicians. His decision will be heavily influenced by SAIC and the China operations, obviously. Our input, no matter how vocal, will not sway his opinion, it may even pressure GM management for a quick Saab deal shutdown in order to put the situation behind them. What they need is space to explain their terms to the Chinese, who have gone over Swan’s… Read more »
Did you follow US politics lately. Did you notice that the deficit committee has pretty much failed, i.e. we’re back at the pre-July situation, i.e. the whole economy will just fall apart?
Do you really think that the US government (or the average US tax payer) really cares about what happens to foreign car maker that has for all purposes has been written off the GM books 2 years ago already?
Guys: A recent example of Chinese copying, is the copy of TOYOTA. A Chinese firm called:”Build Your Dreams” Auto Co. Ltd. has got licenses to manufacture TOYOTA’s such as: LEXUS RX 350, Corolla, and Previa. Kindly view the following links: http://www.auto-chinese.com/byd/byd-s6-suv-review-road-test-lexus-rx/ http://www.auto-chinese.com/byd/byd-m6-review-official-price http://www.carnewschina.com/2010/07/27/byd-l3-to-be-listed-in-august-priced/ The concept of copying disgusts, and under value the car. A Chinese “SAAB” is not a good idea. It would be a good idea to kill the bankrupt SAAB, and it would be a good idea for the SWEDISH nation to start again from scratch, and initiate a new brand, perhaps the can make a new brand… Read more »
Really, you couldn’t write this and get anyone to believe this sorry saga.
Only positive thing for me is if the chinease are paying this months wages they must be both serious and confident of brokering a deal or am I clutching at straws ?
It is obvious that an interesting and smart game is played by GM on this deal.
And GM really plays hard and smart this time!
If the deal comes true then Saab will again fall under GM’s umbrella but in China this time! GM sees the Saab deal as a new opportunity to expand its presence in China. And everybody else knows that without GM no deal can be effected! Smart GM!