GM Is Selling Saab To Spyker Cars 264
johncadengo writes "General Motors said today that it has struck a preliminary deal to sell Saab to Spyker Cars, a tiny Dutch maker of high-end sports cars, saving the Swedish automaker from what seemed like certain extinction after previous bids for it collapsed. A previous bid from Spyker was rejected by GM in late December because GM was uncomfortable with Spyker's Russian backers. The biggest investor in Spyker is the Russian bank Convers Group, which is controlled by Alexander Antonov. In March, Mr. Antonov was shot seven times and reportedly lost a finger in an attempt on his life in Moscow. No arrests have been made. His son Vladimir, 34, is a top executive at Convers and the chairman of Spyker." GM is taking a bath on the deal, financially speaking.
The main details are missing (Score:3, Informative)
From a better source [aol.com]:
"But three crucial issues remained (and still remain): Spyker must deliver the cash, the Swedish government must guarantee a loan, and Spyker Chairman Vladimir Antonov must leave the company."
Many more details [saabsunited.com]:
"The Antonovs were not allowed to start a branch of their Baltic bank Snoras in Britain.The British financial supervisory authority rejected the application, due to the Antonov's nasty reputation for being reluctant to cooperate with the authorities and their general uncommunicativeness.
It is still unclear why the oligark Vladimir Antonov was gunned down and seriously wounded in Moscow in March. But the Antonovs have operations in the harbour in Kaliningrad (former Königsberg), which is notorious for being controlled by the Russian mafia. Kaliningrad is one of the main harbours for shipping guns and drugs to western Europe. In Russia, it is assumed that the attempted assassination is linked to a struggle for power over the operations in Kaliningrad.
No Russian journalists dare to comment on the Antonovs on camera, but off the record they claim that the family has links to shady arms deals.
The Antonovs own a bank in Panama, known as a tax haven. It is not unusual for wealthy Russians to use banks in tax havens for money laundry operations, according to TV4."
Re:A bath? (Score:3, Informative)
If you sell something for less than you buy it for, its a bath. They lost large amounts of money on buying Saab. This may be a better choice than stopping production entirely, but that doesn't mean it isn't a major fuckup overall.
Geeky indeed (Score:5, Informative)
Nerds buy geeky cars. Saab is a geeky car. At one point they had sodium inside the valves for cooling. They had standard turbochargers whey you couldn't get turbocharges.
At one point they also had 2-cycle engines (you had to add oil to the gas tank every time you filled it up) and, if you did it right, you could get the engine running backwards, giving you a car with one speed forward and four in reverse. If that ain't geeky, I don't know what is. You could probably win a lot of bar bets with it.
Sodium-cooled valves isn't all that geeky, though. The 292 CID V-8 in my 1964 Ford F-150 pickup had them, as do a lot of other heavy-duty vehicles.
Re:free SAAB? (Score:4, Informative)
Pretty much the same thing was with Goldman Sachs - they were about to collapse, government came to the rescue with tarp plus lent money practically for free (0,5%), so folks at GS could buy treasury bonds (maybe around 4% - difference is pure risk-free profit at the taxpayer's expense) and gambled in stock market. Thanks to their 'brilliant' strategy they could repay tarp to be free of constraits again... and pay record high bonuses to their managers.
Even 7 year old would make a profit with heavy subsidies from the buddies in government.
Re:free SAAB? (Score:3, Informative)
It wasn't a bailout, it was a loan, which they are already paying back. Go back to your fox/cnn/nbc news network and leave the intelligent people alone.
For an intelligent person, your claims are factually incorrect. It was partially a loan, mostly a cash for equity deal in which the government essentially bought General Motors for ~$40B.
The government won't be paid back until new shares are sold to private investors.
Re:Time for GM to dump all European brands (Score:4, Informative)
If European brands are so terrible, why did GM go through hell and high-water to hang on to Opel?
The truth is that a good chunk of GM's engineering is done in Europe; their modern american cars use the same platforms and engines.
Re:OK, let's reword it... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:A real geeky car is a GTO. (Score:1, Informative)
There is two test that is both refered as "the moose test"
The first one is a "evasive maneuver test" the other one is a crash test with a dummy moose. They tend to land in the windshield because of their long legs.
Re:How is this news for nerds? (Score:3, Informative)
I'm guessing he's referring to SAAB Cross Wheel Drive:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saab_XWD [wikipedia.org]
Re:good (Score:3, Informative)
The A and B class Mercedes are FWD. The Mini is BMW's way of having FWD without having to use the BMW badge on it.
Re:good (Score:3, Informative)
I owned an 85 audi quattro and I still consider it better than my current BMW 5 series so am I missing something (other than perhaps nostalgia)?. The only major problem with it was the display electronics and AC died in the late 90s, compared to my Taurus which the entire thing nearly disintegrated after 6 years.
Display electronics? Either you lived in Europe or had a eurospec urquattro. US cars received analog gauges, Europe got the talking digital dashboard (that usually broke). Ironically the AC compressor was pretty much the only part of those cars Made in the USA. The hoses usually leaked all the freon out after a few years.
Re:A real geeky car is a GTO. (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Marriages Made in Haste.. Oft Leave a Bad Taste (Score:2, Informative)
BRAVO Kimvette:
hit the nail on the head!
SAAB had an amazing history of pioneering technologies and unique Sweedish design esthetics (which really is unique, and is more than IKEA).
They got buried in GM (who actually did a decent job rebranding Cadillac in the market), but never knew how to position SAAB in the market.
Wish this was finalized a few years ago prior to the 9-5 redesign (though it looks nice).
Here's praying that as they go forward and aren't required to pull from the GM parts bins we should see some real changes.
Someone in SAAB: PLEASE look back to the 900 prior to 94 and bring back the whale tale long slant hatchback...put that on top of the amazing best-in-class X-drive and you've really got something....like the Mini, not for everyone, but some unique bodies don't need to change for change's sake.