Youngman to bid 730 million USD for Saab

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The seemingly never end Saab drama took another turn yesterday when it was revealed that a Swedish Government delegation had visited Youngman in China prior to the start of the Chinese New Year to talk about selling Saab to the Chinese bus and car manufacturer. The Swedish Daily Dagens Industri is reporting that a person familiar with the deal is indicating that Youngman maybe readying around 5 billion Swedish Kroner to buy Saab, and will invest a further 5 billion Kroner ($731 million) to develop new models from the Phoenix platform which was developed without any input from GM.

The original deal to sell Saab to Youngman fell through owing to GM not willing to let its IPR that Saab used fall into Youngman’s hands, as the same IPR underpins Buick and Chevrolet models in the Chinese market. This new deal will apparently get around the GM issue and allow Saab’s to be produced in China and Sweden. The previous deal saw a price of just 100 million Euro attached, so it is unclear why it has now jumped to 731 million USD.

Saabs United, a Saab fan site are currently mulling over the possibility of Youngman just producing the Saab 9-3 until the new Phoenix based products are made available. What about engines and all the other GM tech? Elsewhere people are pointing to the possibility of buying off the shelf engines from the likes of VM in Italy or Mitsubishi in Japan. But can Saab’s dealership network survive a two year lock down whilst it waits for new cars? It seems unlikely, and it makes Geely’s purchase of Volvo for 2 billion USD look like a steal in comparison. The 2007 launch of the MG7 in China ought to be a harsh lesson to anyone that thinks they can introduce old tech into China and pass it off as new.