r.i.p saab

The Spyker deal is looking fishier by the day. Apparently the Swedish (and US) government first stopped the deal as the security police found indications that the Antonov family (investors in Spyker) as typical oligarchs have ties to money laundering and worse.

Then Muller (CEO of Spyker) comes back with a new proposal and ownership structure where he rather than the Antonov's stand as owner of Spyker. But he will not say where he found the money. My bet is that he now simply is the front for the Antonov's.

That the government is prepared to back the 400MEuro EIB loan under these unclear circumstances is a disgraceful show of cynicism. It seems pretty clear to me that they are gambling on this house of cards standing until the election without giving a rat's behind about tax payers money (if the loan is embezzled or SAAB goes bellyup the government will have to pay it) and dont mind giving the SAAB staff and Trollhättan false hope.

Alrik Fassbauer said:

Does that mean that GM axed that niche and forced them to rather build bigger, more gas consuming cars ?

That would imho mean that an american industry policy is responsible for the fall of a foreign company, which has lost its own policy because being forced by the american "heads" to do so !?

Click to expand...

Definitely not. As I said SAAB was peddling the 900 and 9000 models when GM got in, and they were not marketed as fuel efficient cars. GM has not handled SAAB well, but that is unintentional incompetence rather than conspiracy.