I agree with some of the commenters here that a fully state owned Saab would be bad, and to be honest, not likely anyway.
I still believe a Spin-off of GME with Opel and Saab together is the best solution. GM Should sell the company to the market, to the employees and if necessary to the respective governments. A publicly traded GME would stand a fair chance to succeed in the market and get the necessary money to develop new models. Let’s face it, it is GM in North America that is going down the drain all the other areas are doing quite okay.

I’d also suggest reading Mark Phelan’s (Detroit Free Press) ideas on what the big 3 need to do
http://www.freep.com/article/20081201/COL14/812010360/1014/BUSINESS01

Indeed I did assume full ownership. This piece was written as a response to a number of prior editorials at The Local, editorials that advocated a full ownership position. hence it’s been written from that point of view and no attention given to the partial ownership model. I wouldn’t have been able to address both models with the word limit I had.

Good to hear SSAB has done well, but for every efficient and profitable government operation, I’m willing to bet there are multiple inefficient ones. Maybe that wouldn’t happen in Sweden, though.

First; you assume full ownership. That’s not gonna happen, but partial may happen and that’s not necessarily a bad thing. Renault is 15% owned by the french government, and are doing quite good nowadays.

Second; you assume that government ownership is bad. That’s neither entirely true. In Sweden we have several examples of government owned companies that are flourishing, not least in the steel industry, and several reports the last years indicate that government ownership isn’t as bad for a company that people generally think. On good example is SSAB, which in the 70′s where three or four different steel-mills that were near bankruptcy. The government went in with full ownership in all of them and created SSAB. 10 or so years later, they could sell SSAB with a profit, and SSAB was then a very profitable company. One of the underlying reasons for this was that the government could spend money on new equipment and factories in a more long-term plan then a publicly owned company could. One year with red numbers, and you have to cut down on manpower or sell something, otherwise the stockmarket will punish you. That’s not the case with a government as an owner.

Another example non-public companies doing well (as an example of long-term capitalism instead of quarter-capitalism) is IKEA and Tetrapak; neither of those would have been where they are today without huge losses year after year while building up new markets, a practice which would not been accepted by shareholders. So, to conclude, when it comes to long-term thinking, the government may not be “hell” for companies, as long as it’s done right.

there’s not much else to comment on, you already hit the nail on the head swade!

“If they survive this current mess, General Motors should invest in Saab with the same enthusiasm with which they’ve got workers in Trollhättan building Cadillacs. Saab’s design ethos is the way of the future – smaller, lighter and smarter. GM should recognize this and develop it.”

Really, the manufacturer for right now is Saab – I really wish instead of harvesting the brands engineering know how and ideas for GM’s domestic brands, they would have just let Saab build Saabs. We may have a wicked 5 door hatch (the most useful vehicle on the road next to a truck or a full blown wagon) with a turbo or even a new Vig!

Funny, I was just noticing Saab ads in Automobile Mag the last month or two and this months newest edition as well as Television advertising – haven’t seen a Saab TV ad since……have I ever actually seen one on air??

My question to readers is this – Would you prefer it if Saab/Volvo remained in Sweden under government control or end up in the hands of another company from say India or China?

I know they are GM/US owned right now, but I think an Asian/Middle Eastern owner would be more hurtful to the Saab brand.

http://www.news.com.au/business/story/0,27753,24739474-31037,00.html

There are definite similarities between the way GM currently run Saab and the way a public sector entity is run. But both are a long way away from how a car company should be run, which I think is the criteria we have to use to evaluate the government option.