Saab will live on: GM makes deal with Spyker Cars
Tuesday, January 26, 2010 at 04:45PM 
Spyker C8 Aileron 2009
Saab will not die after all. General Motors has reached an agreement to sell the unprofitable Saab brand to Dutch luxury car maker Spyker Cars NV. Spyker will pay GM US$74 million in cash and $326 million in preferred stock in the new Saab. The Swedish government will guarantee Spyker a loan of €400 million (US$563 million). Spyker, which moved its production to England last year, has sold only a few hundred cars worldwide, each costing upwards of US$200,000, since its founding in 2000. When the deal closes, the company will be known as Saab Spyker Cars.
Two new Saab models that had been ready for launch before GM pulled the plug, will go ahead. The Saab 9-5 mid-size and the 9-4X crossover SUV will now continue. GM has now successfully sold off two of the four brands it has dropped in its restructuring. Hummer was bought by a Chinese car maker, Sichuan Tengzhong Heavy Industrial Machinery Co., though the deal has not been approved by the Chinese government yet. Efforts to sell Saturn failed, and GM did not try to sell Pontiac.
Saab had been in decline, with sales falling drastically over the past few years. By mid-2009, only 23,875 units had been sold and the company has not been profitable since 2001, losing hundreds of millions of dollars. Victor Muller, CEO of Spyker, spoke of making the "iconic" Saab brand profitable again, with sales of over 100,000 "in the not too distant future."
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