F1 supremo Bernie Ecclestone is part of consortium tabling a late bid to save Saab.
The billionaire is backing the bid led by the Luxembourg-based investment group Genii Capital, which recently bought 75 per cent of the Renault F1 team.
Ecclestone, said: “It's a good brand that has probably been neglected by the current owners. We don't own it yet, so let's see what happens.”
In a press release, Genii Capital said Saab "has a tremendous brand value in a number of key automotive markets as well as an innovative image" and stressed the importance of "VOIP and GPS location based services" in future Saab models.
Genii is reported to be modelling its business plan on Koenigsegg's effort, which fell apart when finance was not forthcoming.
Koenigsegg had said it would make Saab profitable by 2012 by increasing production to 105,000 vehicles a year.
Spyker has also confirmed it tabled an improved offer for Saab late last night.
Victor Muller, CEO of Spyker Cars said: "We have continued a constructive dialogue with GM over the acquisition of Saab. We believe the Saab brand has lots of potential and would be keen to close a deal as quickly as possible."Two Swedish consortiums are also said to have tabled bids for Saab.
One is headed by Haakan Samuelsson, a 58-year-old Swede who quit as chief executive officer of German engineering and truck manufacturer MAN in November, and Jan Nygren, a former Social Democratic cabinet minister and ex-deputy chief executive of defence material group Saab.
The group's business plan aims to scale down Saab to building 45,000 to 50,000 cars a year, and would not require a loan from the European Investment Bank.
The board of Saab's parent company GM is set to meet on Thursday to discuss the company's future.
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Re: Bernie Ecclestone bids for Saab
I think that's probably how much of his own money he's planning to put into the deasl.
Re: Bernie Ecclestone bids for Saab
You just don’t get it and you said it yourself GM is SAAB, GM owns SAAB, its GM IP, the R&D cost are paid for by GM, the only reason anyone wants to buy the company at all is for Epsilon II. If it was a matter of someone buying the Marque name I am sure they can have it for a reasonable cost but that is not going to happen. SAAB was never a great seller and never would be no matter how much cash GM dropped into the sinkhole. If you think any of the current bidders are SAABs salvation, think again, a little research shows Spyker has never turned a profit, although I must admit they sound like a perfect match for SAAB. The same GM engineers, Swede-non Swede can do the same tech on Opel/Vauxhalls if it is financially feasible. As far as the humiliation part goes, what benefit does GM gain by destroying its own product; the reasonable answer armchair genius opinions aside is none. GM would be delighted if anyone could come up with the cash for the sale, although I suspect that if anyone did buy the company when the inevitable train wreck does happen you would still blame GM. It’s a no win situation, they should have crushed the beast's head months ago so everyone could heal and go buy Audis and Bimmers as they would have anyway. Let it go WooDz, let the healing begin.
Re: Bernie Ecclestone bids for Saab
You are right. why pay more for an OPEL badged as a SAAB?
Point is GM/OPEL has managed to make SAAB look like the donor. People buy Skoda because they are the donee but cheaper.
GM on the other hand, hit SAAB with the development costs but put the thec in every GM vehicle but a SAAB. So SAAB has been diluted over the years and has been able to put just a fraction of what they have developed into their own vehicles.
VAG on the other hand make sure there is a difference between their brands which warrants the price premium. GM on the other hand wants to put everything in all their cars and just change the panels and the price tag. However in SAABs case they changed the price tag, left out the new tech and told everyone in their press releases it all came from OPEL.
Is it any wonder that SAABs don't sell. (9-5) a 20 year old GM2900 platform with 20 year old Iron block engine. (9-3) a 10 year old Epsilon platform with 10 year old engine. In the meantime they develop a 2.0 DI-Turbo (sat in Saturns and OPELS and now the Buick GS). 1.6T sat in Astra, 1.4T sat in Corsa. e85 capable engines in Saturns, Chevys. But not one SAAB is offered with e85 even though they developed it.
Glad you mentioned Holden's LWB epsilon project. They don't need to do anything because the new 9-5 is that LWB version.
Yes the SAAB engineers that were brought down from Sweden to develop the Insignia platform are on GM's pay role and yes GM employ them but don't you think it's a bit of a kick in the teeth when GM slams you for R&D costs, don't allow you to put that new IP in your own products. Then publicly humiliates you for making a loss. Yet your hard work is sitting in Millions of other GM vehicles.
Yeah GM who bitches about SAAB losing a few hundred Million a year when the rest of their brands are losing over $35bn a year. A bit friggin rich in my book personally.
I apologize for my slight outburst here but I'm getting pretty sick of hearing that SAAB's are Vauxhalls, when the fact is they are not. Current 9-3 for example was engineered to be AWD capable and only uses 60% of original OPEL architecture (That's more of a difference than the Alfa 159 which uses the same Architecture). The 2.0Ltr ecotec engine shares the name only. SAAB use Optic cabling for their electronics making ESP systems react faster than the rest of GM's line up. 9-3 has rear-wheel passive steering, again only offered by SAAB.
Now if GM had marketed SAAB as the developer and gave them the products they had engineered, then maybe peoples perceptions would be different.
I really hope that GM let SAAB go so finally a real company can do some justice.