Quote Originally Posted by Bloomberg
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., will make the announcement today, 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 will be identified at a press conference later today. Pouteaux declined in a phone interview to comment further, citing an agreement with the buyer.
Saab, the maker of the 9-5 sedan and 9-4X crossover vehicle, hasn?t built cars since last year following an initial production halt in March 2011, and it filed for bankruptcy in December. Trollhaettan-based Saab has been unprofitable for most of two decades, and General Motors Co. (GM), which acquired full control of the manufacturer in 2000, sold it in February 2010 to Dutch supercar maker Spyker NV. (SWAN)
Competing Bidder
The Saab administrators said early in 2012 that a half- dozen parties had shown interest in buying the company. Jinhua, China-based Zhejiang Youngman Lotus Automobile said in February that it was in talks, and it made a revised bid exceeding 4 billion kronor ($567 million) as late as June 8.
The Chinese-Japanese bidding group formed a company called National Electric Vehicle Sweden AB with the purpose of buying Saab?s assets, a spokesman said in May.
The Swedish carmaker has hovered near bankruptcy several times, including in 1989, the year before GM bought a one-half stake. The U.S. company, seeking to stem losses, planned in late 2009 to shut Saab, as it did with the Saturn, Hummer and Pontiac divisions in the U.S., until Spyker Chief Executive Officer Victor Muller persuaded it to sell the brand to him.
After sales peaked at 133,000 deliveries in 2006, Saab sold just 31,700 vehicles in 2010. Deliveries were hurt that year because Saab needed longer than expected to restore production flows after GM emptied the factory and cut the brand?s supplier ties, Muller said in 2011.
No sales figures have been released for 2011. Eric Geers, a former Saab spokesman who now works for startup Chinese carmaker Qoros Auto Ltd., estimated in February that the Swedish brand sold 10,000 to 15,000 vehicles last year.
Saab Auto?s roots date back to the 1937 establishment of aircraft manufacturer Svenska Aeroplan AB, which began making cars in 1947. The auto business was split from the aerospace operations, now called Saab AB (SAABB), in the 1990s. About 3,600 people worked at Saab Auto before its bankruptcy, including 3,400 in Trollhaettan.
