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TROLLHATTAN, Sweden – Facing bankruptcy and a crushing global economic meltdown in January 2009, the former General Motors Corp. announced it would shed half its U.S. brands, including Saab Automobile AB. A month later, Saab entered the Swedish version of Chapter 11.
That summer, tiny exotic sports-car maker Koenigsegg Group AB agreed to purchase the company, but the deal soon fell apart. The bid was withdrawn on Nov. 24, and GM announced on Dec. 18 it would shutdown Saab for good. The once-proud, “Born from Jets” Swedish auto maker entered liquidation on Jan. 8, 2010.
But just 18 days later, Dutch entrepreneur Victor Muller, CEO of Spyker Cars N.V., another tiny exotic sports-car maker, stepped in with a purchase agreement. With financing through the Swedish government and European investment banks, Spyker bought the company (valued by some at more than $1 billion) for the equivalent of $74 million.
On Feb. 23, the Swedish auto maker exited liquidation, resumed operations and everyone in Saab’s hometown of Trollhattan exhaled.
“It has been a ride,” says Muller. “It’s unbelievable the company managed to overcome all those perils and lived to tell about it. That says something about the resilience of this brand and its people and the sheer impressive power that (CEO) Jan Ake Jonsson and his team have put forward. Saab is the company that wouldn’t die.”
Muller says the new stand-alone Saab has a profitable future, partly because the perfect storm that caused GM and Chrysler LLC to go through receivership has brought home the message to every auto maker there is only one way forward: Brace for future downturns by bringing down your breakeven point.
“One way to do that is sharing technology with others,” he says. “It is not coincidence that we are seeing a massive musical chairs whereby large and smaller manufacturers are starting to cooperate and share technologies on an unprecedented scale.”
Saab’s new owner also does not believe the auto maker needs sales in the millions to survive. In fact, he’s convinced that with the right technology partners, Saab can be very profitable selling just 125,000 vehicles a year.
“It is a very good opportunity for brands like ours, with a clear identity and a fantastic infrastructure, to come to a profitable stand-alone future,” Muller says. “We assume that by 2012 we will be back where we were in 2007 (in volume) with the widest and most modern product portfolio in the history of the company.
