Mergers and acquisitions

Saab crash test

On the press-conference today the administrators again confirmed 6-7 serious interested parties in buying Saab and continue to develop and produce Saabs in Trollhattan. One of them should be a European car manufacturer. There are rumours who it is, but nothing is confirmed yet.

Even if no name was revealed, it made a smile on my face. Why ? Because there is a chance, that Saab will belong to someone able to keep it alive, bring to profit and maybe ressurect the name Saab in the public. Outside of the fanbase.

The acquisition of a company is just a start. The main circus begins afterwards. It's called post merger integration and it failed too often in the past. Not only in the automotive industry, but overall.

It is a known fact, that less than a the success rate of such a company acquisitions is lower as one could expect. It ranges from 45%, through 30% to an alarming 10%. Under success is meant reaching the planned targets, mainly increase of revenue and marketshare. Not reaching them can have ugly consequences.

An interesting study from Deloitte based on the largest post-merger integration database  is naming the risks which can cause such failures. There are land mines everywhere. In the possible insufficient due diligence and not accurate finance fugures. In complicated merge of fundamentally different structured organisations. In problems connected with people alignment and management. Or in the failure of the merger project itself due to lack of experience.

Despite of the cultural shock of the employees. After a personal experience with this I voluntarily left my very fine job after such an acquisition. 

So if the administrators of Saab are don't want to see Saab in clinical death again in two years, the winner of the battle of Trollhattan must not only have a lot of cash but also be experienced in acquisitions and integrations afterwards. Is this the case o f the named interesting parties ?



Youngman produces MAN trucks, Neoplan Busses and personal vehicles co-developed by Lotus. Everything mainly in China, not Europe or United States. Brightwell Holdings are investors, which is not the same as a company acquires another company. And they are not in the automotive industry, at least not known. As the opposite Mahindra & Mahindra is an automaker with a large product range and cooperations with foreign companies, for example Renault. However they were never through an acquisition of such a special company like Saab.

And than comes the message of an interested european car manufacturer. Nearly every large european car company has been through at least one industrial marriage or overtake. If the rumours about that the company is german would be true, than all major german brands have very intensive experience with it.

One thing is to have money for buying Saab, second thing is to fit it into its product strategy and third thing is to have experience with continuity of the business. These three things fulfills only one "known" interested party.

And that is the european manufacturer.



More informations about the recent press conference : Save Saab Museum blog | Saabsunited |  Saabblog.