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I’ve tried to stay away from the potential-ownership-of-Saab-thing in the last month or so because the fact of the matter is that we won’t know until someone tells us. Until then, the speculation is just that – speculation.
What we need instead is news and Automotive News have posted a full page story on Saab today that contains one sentence of new information. It’s source-less, but it’s the closest we’ve had to news for a little while now. Here’s the magic sentence:
General Motors has found no interested buyers for Saab, sources familiar with efforts to sell the Swedish brand say.
The rest of the story is background filler to tell the tale as to how we got to this point.
I guess the question right now is What next? If this story and the ’source familiar with efforts’ is correct, then Saab and GM are stuck with each other. If that sentence just made your skin crawl then at least you know you’re alive.
It shouldn’t be too much of a surprise, though. Aside from Porsche buying up Volkswagen shares, it seems that car companies around the world are in much more of a shedding mode at the moment. Jobs, future vehicles, racing teams. You name it, some car company somewhere is getting rid of it.
The choices seem pretty clear – viability or death. More on that from me later. You can add your 0.02c in comments now.
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9 responses so far ↓
1 Markac
// Jan 9, 2009 at 8:42 am
If that truly is the case then it’s very sad. If Saab stays with GM I predict that within 5 years it will just become Opel’s Riley or Wolseley. A fancy badge to attach to ordinary cars. If that’s what’s going to happen, then I will desert the brand. It’s not something I want to watch at least from close up. GM had it’s chance and it blew it. Saab will now be it’s ‘unwanted child’ and things will be much worse.
Perhaps Saab still has a chance if GME separates and combines with Fiat like Saabhistory suggest? But that will take some time to happen. In the meantime let’s just hope the reports are wrong….
2 Mailr
// Jan 9, 2009 at 9:39 am
Well, I think the proper interpretation is no buyer at our current price and conditions. To start with, I’m pretty sure somebody would be interested at $1, if no debts are attached. The other Saab, for example.
Maybe the potential buyers are waiting for the price to drop, which will likely happen if GM goes bankrupt. Which I think is likely after being briefed on how GM pensions will wind up in a bankruptcy: As Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (US goverment) will essentially garantuee UAW:s pension money (but not health care), I think a bankruptcy will be the easy way out for politicans, as in a default no person have to take responsibilty to transfer the pension liability.
3 Gerald
// Jan 9, 2009 at 9:58 am
Mailr’s right, no one is interested either because the price is wrong, or there are conditions, or perhaps GM isn’t really trying all that hard yet. Negotiations never occur in earnest until the last minute, so casually putting up a handwritten For Sale sign isn’t going to get anything done in this world economy. If a Euro company approaches GM with serious intent, a deal will happen — simply because it HAS to. GM’s continued half-hearted ownership of Saab can’t be easily defended to their new congressional overlords so it’s a goner sooner or later.
4 ctm
// Jan 9, 2009 at 10:30 am
Come on… It was just one month ago that GM said they maybe wanted to sell Saab. Do they really think a buyer would express interest just a few weeks later? Maybe those interested want to review the whole thing, gather information, look into the structure of the company regarding the ties to GME and GM, look for ways to finance it all… Those things take months. Of course no one will say they are interested already no matter how interested they really are. It’s the buyers market.
The only reason for someone to leak this information (if it is true at all – “sources familiar” with things in the auto industry usually don’t know shit 99 times out of 100) is to prepare some people for the thing that GM knew all along: they don’t want to sell Saab, a sale would create a lot of badwill without even making a dent in their financial figures, and what they said in The Plan about Saab only had to be there to please US politicians. What they want is to secure secure funding coming from outside the bailout packages for the projects inside GME, and that’s it.
5 Markac
// Jan 9, 2009 at 10:30 am
I guess you guys are right. Why would anyone buy Saab now?
Just wait a few months and a potential buyer will have GM over a barrel!
6 Kroum
// Jan 9, 2009 at 12:12 pm
At their current market cap, I wonder if GM Corp. itself could become the target of a hostile takeover.
No surprises there, though. Like ctm said, even a potentially interested buyer would like to go over all the books and plans before even commencing the money talks. And this could take months.
7 albert
// Jan 9, 2009 at 6:39 pm
ctm, I completely agree with you.
8 Chris
// Jan 10, 2009 at 1:52 am
GM purchased Saab for $600 million right? So if a couple hundred thousand of us can spare a few grand then we can could just buy Saab ourselves. sound like a plan?
9 Markac
// Jan 10, 2009 at 8:00 am
Chris: GM paid about $600 million for 50% of Saab in 1989. It is believed to have paid a bit more for the remainder in 2000. Saab had a lot more infrastructure back then. I’m guessing that you could probably buy it for $600 million now?