2024 Author: Eric Donovan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 21:13
After filing for bankruptcy, the Swedish car brand Saab wants to continue production without GM. Experts do not consider a merger with Opel to make sense.
As the first European car manufacturer, Saab has applied for bankruptcy in the current crisis and is facing the end. While at the same time in Germany the survival of the Opel concern, which also belongs to the US auto giant General Motors (GM), was struggling, the Saab leaders announced on Friday in Trollhättan, Sweden, a new attempt to survive without GM. Observers also mentioned a merger of the comparatively small Swedish manufacturer with Opel as a possibility.
Production continues
The lawyer, Guy Lofalk, who was appointed as insolvency administrator, confirmed to the approximately 4,100 employees in Trollhättan that Saab will continue to produce cars unchanged for the time being. The previous CEO Jan Åke Jonsson announced that the future Saab models will also be presented at the Geneva auto show in a good two weeks. Saab is one of the smallest car manufacturers in Europe and has made a name for itself since 1947 with high-quality and particularly safe cars.
GM, itself acutely threatened with extinction, secured financial aid in Detroit to continue production in a reconstruction period of at least three months. For long-term survival, Jonsson said that the Swedish government in Stockholm provided state guarantees for loans from the European Investment Bank (EIB) to "a new company Saab Automobile". So far, Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt and Minister of Economic Affairs Maud Olofsson have categorically rejected this and referred to GM's responsibility.
Obsolete models
Jonsson had justified the decline of the company among other things with "outdated models". The official insolvency petition said: "The company's losses arose as a result of reduced demand, an outdated product range with an uncompetitive model cycle, a narrow product range and a much too extensive production capacity with corresponding costs."
The automaker had made GM losses in almost every year since it entered the market in 1990. Last year Saab sold 94,000 cars - after 125,000 in the previous year. The sales of the Swedish manufacturer of cars for high demands and well-filled purses collapsed massively in the wake of the financial crisis. Debt deferrals and discounts by suppliers were an important milestone in filing for bankruptcy. The past year brought a loss of three billion crowns (272 million euros).
German experts believe that a merger with Saab would be of little use to Opel. Nevertheless, close cooperation could be “inevitable,” said Wolfgang Meinig from the Research Center for the Automotive Industry (FAW) at the University of Bamberg. The reason is shared platforms on which the cars of the two European subsidiaries of the US auto company General Motors (GM) are based. "You can't just throw that overboard." The car expert Ferdinand Dudenhöffer describes in the Autogazette a merger between Saab and Opel as unrealistic. “Saab is in a structure that economically leaves no way to survive. Neither with another group nor in independence, »said Dudenhöffer.
In terms of size, however, according to the experts, Saab is of no interest to Opel. If the Rüsselsheim-based company should gain full or partial independence from its mother, the car manufacturer would have to rely on larger partners. Christoph Stürmer from the economic research institute Global Insight Deutschland GmbH in Frankfurt said: "Even in conjunction with GME, Opel would be a relatively small player." In addition to Opel, GM Europe (GME) also includes Saab and the English brand Vauxhall.
On Wednesday, the management of Opel and GM had brought into play for the first time a partial separation of Opel from the ailing US mother and declared that it would negotiate with third parties about "partnerships and investments" if necessary. (dpa / AG)
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