General Motors Co (GM) has adjusted its plan for Saab to focus on selling the entire unit, with Spyker Cars NV emerging as a frontrunner, people familiar with the situation said.
Spyker, the Dutch maker of US$235,000 sports cars, was negotiating details of an agreement with GM over the weekend in Zurich, Switzerland, said two people who asked not to be identified because the talks are confidential.
GM has separately signed an agreement to sell some technologies for Saab’s 9-3 and 9-5 models, including engine and gear-box technology and some production equipment, to Beijing Automotive Industry Holding Co (北京汽車工業), the Chinese automaker said in a press statement yesterday.
The Detroit automaker is trying to sell or wind down the Swedish unit after Koenigsegg Group AB backed out of a purchase agreement last month. A sale of Saab will also depend on Sweden’s guarantee and the EU’s approval for a US$585 million loan from the European Investment Bank, the people said.
A sale to Spyker “would be a step in the right direction,” Mike Tyndall, an automotive analyst at Nomura Securities in London, said in a telephone interview. “I’m not sure if it will be viable in the long term given Saab’s small scale and weakened brand image.”
Saab was among four US brands GM planned to unload as part of its restructuring to focus on Chevrolet, Buick, GMC and Cadillac.
GM dropped Pontiac, had the Saturn deal fail and agreed to sell the Hummer sport-utility vehicle brand to China’s Sichuan Tengzhong Heavy Industrial Machinery Co (四川騰中重工機械). GM said on Dec. 1 it would review bids for Saab and decide by the end of this month whether to sell or shut the unit.
Both Saab and Spyker Cars, declined to comment.
The Chinese automaker, which was rebuffed by GM in July when it bid for Ruesselsheim, Germany-based Opel, has blamed the failed bid on disagreement over intellectual property rights to car designs and technology.
Spyker is bidding for Saab in a partnership with chairman Vladimir Antonov’s RMC Convers Group, Spyker chief executive officer Victor Muller said in a Dec. 2 interview.
While Spyker hasn’t made a profit since its initial public offering in 2004, the Netherlands-based company is better positioned than rivals because it most resembles Koenigsegg, the Swedish maker of US$1.2 million sports cars, one of the people said.
Other bidders that have expressed interest in Saab since Koenigsegg’s pullout include Merbanco Inc, a Wyoming-based investor, and billionaire Ira Rennert’s Renco Group Inc, sources said.
Saab is retooling its plant in Trollhaettan, Sweden, to begin production of a 9-5 sedan, the company’s first new model in seven years.
RSS