Declaring bankruptcy doesn’t necessarily mean that you close shop – just ask GM and Chrysler. But when the receivers walk in begin selling off your assets, though, as is the case with Saab, it would take a miracle (to say the least) to survive.
Then again, perhaps miracles do happen. Reuters reports that Chinese group Youngman, which had originally agreed with Saab’s owner, Swedish Automobile, to buy the brand and had even injected some cash into it but saw the deal fall apart due to GM’s refusal to let its intellectual property fall into the hands of its rivals, is ready to make a comeback.
The news agency cites not one, but two sources who are familiar with the situation. They both confirmed that Youngman is ready to make a bid for Saab next week. So did a lawyer representing Youngman who said that the group would develop technology not controlled by GM.
Even if the bid does materialize, it might already be too late. As the second source revealed, the receivers handling the carmaker’s assets have already agreed to sell parts of Saab’s business to engineering firm Semcon.
“The big danger is that Saab and Semcon have agreed a deal with the receiver over large parts of Saab Automobile that would make it impossible for anyone to buy Saab as a whole”, the source said.
The same person added that the receivers haven’t made public which parts of the company are up for sale. “You don’t know if the brand rights are for sale… if the technology is for sale. There is no information available,” Reuters quoted the source as saying.
To sum it up: Saab is already being broken to pieces, some of them are being offloaded to Semcon and no one except the receivers really knows what’s available for sale.
Nevertheless, Youngman still wants to bid for Saab even without its GM technology. Maybe it just wants the brand name. In that case, it would have to talk to a different seller, since it’s still owned by defense company Saab AB and truck maker Scania.
Makes the GM-Chrysler bailout look like as simple as boiling an egg, doesn’t it?
