A Chinese-Japanese investment group that may build electric cars agreed to buy Saab Automobile and bring the Swedish manufacturer back from bankruptcy, a person familiar with the matter said.
The group, led by Japanese investment firm Sun Investment and Hong Kong-based renewable-energy power-plant builder National Modern Energy Holdings Ltd (國家現代能源控股), was to make the announcement yesterday, said the person, who declined to be identified discussing the deal before an official announcement.
Anne-Marie Pouteaux and Hans Bergqvist, Saab’s bankruptcy administrators, said in a statement that the carmaker has been sold and the purchaser was to be identified at a press conference later yesterday.
Photo: AFP
Saab, the maker of the 9-5 sedan and 9-4X crossover vehicle, has not built cars since last year following an initial production halt in March last year, and it filed for bankruptcy in December after its previous owner, the Dutch supercar maker Spyker NV, later named Swedish Automobile, failed to get backing for Saab.
Trollhaettan-based Saab has been unprofitable for two decades, and General Motors Co (GM), which acquired full control of the manufacturer in 2000, sold it in February 2010 to Spyker.
In April, a summary of Saab’s balance sheet showed the company has debts of 13 billion kronor (US$1.9 billion) and assets of about 3.6 billion kronor.
The debts include claims of 2.2 billion kronor from the Swedish state, 606 million kronor from former owner GM and 513 million kronor from former employees.
Saab also owes GM 2.2 billion kronor it paid for preferential shares, but the US automotive company would only be entitled to that if the bankruptcy produced a surplus, the trustees said.
The Saab administrators said early this year that a half-dozen parties had shown interest in buying the company. Jinhua, China-based Zhejiang Youngman Lotus Automobile (浙江青年蓮花汽車) said in February that it was in talks, and it made a 4 billion kronor offer last month, a person familiar with the situation said on May 31.
The Sun Investment bidding group formed a company called National Electric Vehicle Sweden AB with the purpose of buying Saab’s assets, a spokesman said last month.
With sales peaking at 133,000 deliveries in 2006, Saab sold just 31,700 vehicles in 2010.
No sales figures have been released for last year. Eric Geers, a former Saab spokesman who now works for startup Chinese carmaker Qoros Auto Ltd (觀致汽車), estimated in February that the Swedish brand sold 10,000 to 15,000 vehicles last year.
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
RECORD-BREAKING: TSMC’s net profit last quarter beat market expectations by expanding 8.9% and it was the best first-quarter profit in the chipmaker’s history Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), which counts Nvidia Corp as a key customer, yesterday said that artificial intelligence (AI) server chip revenue is set to more than double this year from last year amid rising demand. The chipmaker expects the growth momentum to continue in the next five years with an annual compound growth rate of 50 percent, TSMC chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家) told investors yesterday. By 2028, AI chips’ contribution to revenue would climb to about 20 percent from a percentage in the low teens, Wei said. “Almost all the AI innovators are working with TSMC to address the
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”