The newest battle of Saab started

The bidding and information battle of Saab increased on intensity. The recent bid of Youngman has been rejected by the receivers but this is just a start.

According to various sources, the Youngman - Lotus bid for Saab was between 200 and 300 M€ which seems not to be enough. They anticipate around 1000 workers in the Trollhattan plant, if they win, which again seems to be insufficient. No word about the rumoured claim to invest 500 M€ as a buying price and another 500 M€ for development.

If this is a bidding battle, like an auction, than the price will go up soon.

Important is, which Saab models would be produced (if any) under the new buyer. GM told, they will not allow anyone to use the 9-5 and 9-4X intellectual property, so these models seems to be gone. The Saab 9-3 is still in game but the know-how for the pre-facelifted 9-3 was sold to the chinese BAIC, which now warns Youngman about this. And it seems not to matter, that the current line are the post-facelifted Griffins. Who knows, how the agreement looks like ...

Brightwell Holdings, the other known interested party, is negotiating with GM, claims TTela today. Zamier Ahmed, the representative of Brightwell says, that they want to produce 9-5 and 9-4X as quickly as possible and is very optimistic about that. No words about the price, they didn't placed a bid yet, but signed an agreement of confidentiality with the receivers.

This might be a tactical move. It is known, that Brightwell was in talks with Victor Muller before the bankruptcy declaration.

Youngman - Lotus as well as Brightwell Holdings intend to buy Saab as a complete and restart production. Production of what exactly is still open. 

The third interested party Mahindra is still quiet.

The identity of the other parties, most important this "european car maker" also remains unknown.

There are also parties which would like to buy only a part of Saab. BAIC seems to be interested in context of a plan to produce electric cars together with Panasonic. Electric Saabs would provide enough know-how.  Also the swedish neighbour from Goteborg would be interested in development properties. And many more. The receivers claimed several times, that they are interested in selling Saab as a whole, not part by part. How strong they can stay we will find out quite soon.

GM has to approve any kind of business with Saab. Will it ?

The newest battle of Saab started. Will it finish the war ? We thought this about several battles before, no one did. But, as the receivers clearly stated, the clock is ticking and money is less and less.

Sources : saabsunited, saabblog, ttela