A Sino-Japanese group has agreed to buy the bankrupt carmaker and build electric vehicles.
Chinese-born Swedish national Kai Johan Jiang has agreed to buy Saab - a move that could save the apparently defunct carmaker after a series of failed deals forced it to declare bankruptcy in 2011. The buyer, National Electric Vehicle Sweden AB (NEVS AB will be led by Japanese investment firm Sun Investment and Hong Kong-based renewable energy power plant builder National Modern Energy Holdings Ltd.
While neither the buyer nor investment firms disclosed the size or timescales of the investment, NEVS AB released a statement saying the new firm would focus on producing electric vehicles (EVs) for the Chinese market.
In December last year a similar deal with China’s Zhejiang Youngman Lotus Group and Pang Da fell through after General Motors, the owner of much of Saab’s technology, blocked the deal. Even after Zhejiang Youngman Lotus Group’s last-minute $5 million cash injection, production at the Trollhatten plant ground to a halt as Saab, 13 billion kroner ($1.8 billion) in debt, filed for bankruptcy.
If the venture is successful, Saab will start producing EVs based on Japanese technology and a Saab platform, which it will target at the booming Chinese market. NEVS has only bought the rights to the Saab 9-3 and a development platform for future Saabs, called Phoenix. GM will still own the rights to the 9-4x and the 9-5 platforms, while Saab’s spare parts unit will be controlled by the Swedish government.
Paul Akerlund, mayor of Trollhatten and former Saab union boss, was highly optimistic about the purchase, claiming “Saab has risen again”. However, the new unit will only need around 200 workers, a fraction of the 3,500 who were previously employed at the plant.
Saab has been unprofitable for almost two decades now, and has changed hands several times after poor sales figures failed to encourage investors. Deliveries of the niche brand peaked in 2006 at 133,000 vehicles, but dropped sharply to only 31,700 vehicles in 2010. Official sales figures for 2011 were not released, however former Saab spokesperson Eric Geers, who now works for Chinese carmaker Qoros Auto Ltd., estimates the Swedish automaker could not have sold more than 15,000 units last year.
Despite its troubled history, administrators claimed Saab had had half a dozen parties interested in purchasing the company, including Zhejiang Youngman Lotus Automobile, which offered 4 billion kroner ($567 million) in May. Jiang is confident of the company’s future performance and hopes the purchase of Saab will usher in “a new era in the auto industry”.