Aug. 18 (Bloomberg) -- Koenigsegg Automotive AB, the maker of high-performance sports cars, reached an agreement to buy General Motors Co.’s Saab Automobile AB unit and return the luxury automaker to Swedish control after almost two decades, according to two people familiar with the situation.
Koenigsegg still needs to secure about $300 million in funding to complete the transaction, said the people, who declined to be identified because the talks are private. The companies may make an announcement as early as today.
Sweden has reaffirmed its commitment to guarantee a $600 million loan applied for at the European Investment Bank, while Koenigsegg and GM together would contribute about $500 million in capital, one of the people said.
Talks with Sweden remain constructive although the government has so far refused to contribute the $300 million the buyers need in additional financing, one of the people said. GM and Koenigsegg, based in Aengelholm, Sweden, are pushing forward with the deal while talks continue with the Swedish government.
“We’re eager to make a decision on the future of Saab, but we are unable to comment at this time,” Renee Rashid-Merem, a GM spokeswoman, said in an interview yesterday. Eric Geers, a Saab spokesman, didn’t return phone calls seeking comment and a Koenigsegg spokeswoman, Halldora von Koenigsegg, couldn’t be reached immediately for comment.
Three New Models
The deal with the sports-car maker may help Saab, which is under protection from creditors, get guarantees for loans from the EIB that the automaker needs to survive.
Under Koenigsegg, Saab plans to launch three new models by 2012, including the 9-3x electric car, believing ecological vehicles are a key to future success. Koenigsegg is in talks with Bayerische Motoren Werke AG, based in Munich, regarding powertrains, one of the people familiar with the matter said.
Taking over Saab will catapult Koenigsegg from its luxury sports-car niche into the automotive mass market, adding Saab station wagons to Koenigsegg cars that reach speeds of close to 400 kilometers (250 miles) an hour and cost $1.2 million.
Saab has been unprofitable for most of GM’s 20 years of ownership and employs about 100 times Koenigsegg’s workforce of 45.
Under Koenigsegg, Saab will return production of the larger 9-5 model to its main factory in Trollhaettan from Ruesselsheim in Germany, while production of its 9-3 will also be relocated, from Austria one of the people familiar with the situation said.
Looking For a Buyer
GM bought Saab in two stages from the Wallenberg family, starting in 1990. GM has been looking for a buyer for Saab since February, when it said it was breaking ties with the division. Saab sold fewer than 100,000 cars last year.
Its popularity peaked in the 1980s, when the 900 model drew buyers seeking a European car that stood for technical innovation, safety, luxury and idiosyncratic design. Saab was the first carmaker with side-impact protection systems in 1972 and spearheaded turbocharged engines.
The carmaker, which had 0.4 percent of the European market last year, lost about 3 billion kronor in 2008 and expects a similar deficit in 2009, according to court documents. |
