Saab story – Swedish carmaker dies

Saab story – Swedish carmaker dies
IOL mot dec17 saab

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The Saab 9-5 will be remembered not only for its sleek design, but also as the last all-new Saab to have been launched.

Sad news if you're a Saab fan - after six decades of building many quirky cars, the Swedish car company is no more. According to a Swedish district court, Saab officially filed for bankruptcy this morning.

Not that this is a huge surprise to anyone, with its latest owner (Swedish Automobile) having struggled for two years to save the company.

Saab's former owner, General Motors, put the final nail in its coffin recently, by using a licencing agreement to block a willing Chinese investor from giving Saab the funding it desperately needed. Basically, GM was scared that some of its technology, still found in Saab cars, would land in the laps of these Chinese investors.

Saab says that without further funding, the company will be insolvent and that filing for bankruptcy is in the best interests of its creditors.

So what did GM have to say? In the words of spokesman James Cain: “Each proposal results either directly or indirectly in the transfer of control and/or ownership of the company in a manner that would be detrimental to GM and its shareholders.

“As such, GM cannot support any of these proposed alternatives.”

The attempts to sell Saab to Chinese partners have been seen as the last chance to save the carmaker, which was already on the brink of bankruptcy when GM sold it to Swedish Automobile (at the time called Spyker) in early 2010 for the equivalent of R3.3-billion. It has been a rocky road ever since.

The company was forced to halt production in April of this year as suppliers stopped deliveries over mountains of unpaid bills.

Saab's some 3700 employees, whose salaries have been delayed for five months running, did not receive their November pay checks. Once the bankruptcy filing is approved, they will be paid through a state wage guarantee.

The carmaker began life in 1937 as an aircraft manufacturer, something that became evident in the aerodynamic, sporty shape of its first concept car designs.

Saab built its first prototype cars in 1947 with the first production version rolling off the assembly line two years later.