GM: No Plans To Sell New Saab 9-5 or 9-4X

DETROIT — General Motors on Friday said there are no plans to sell certain assets of its Saab brand, such as the redesigned Saab 9-5, which was supposed to go into production early next year, or the Saab 9-4X.

"It is very much possible as part of the wind-down process there might be expressions of interest among the assets of Saab, but at the moment, I'm not aware of any," said John Smith, GM vice president of corporate planning and alliances in a telephone press conference shortly after GM made its formal announcement that a Saab sale cannot be concluded and that it is winding down the brand.

The post-mortem on the announcement of the demise of the Swedish Saab brand did not offer much consolation to Saab owners or employees.

"There is no point in carrying on," Smith said.

But when asked "is this the final nail in the coffin?" Smith added: "We're going to begin the wind-down process. It is possible that during the wind-down, any number of people could come forward and express interest. There were vehicles that are in development that I imagine would be attractive to some folks, but that has not been our focus. I can't rule it out, but the clock starts now as we start the wind-down process."

Smith would not give a specific timetable for the wind-down process, but he said "our ambition would be to wind it down as quickly as possible."

He said GM had not heard from Beijing Automotive Industry Holdings about acquiring the entire Saab brand. Last week, Saab announced it had closed on the sale of Saab 9-3, current 9-5 and powertrain and tooling to the Chinese firm.

About 3,400 Saab employees and 1,100 Saab dealers are affected by word of Saab's death, GM said.

GM on Friday said that talks to sell Saab to Spyker Cars had broken off and that a "sale cannot be concluded." Last month Koenigsegg Group AB withdrew from talks to buy Saab.

Smith said he was reluctant to offer specific details on why talks broke off with Spyker.

"I'm not going to add very much meat on that set of bones," he said. "Everybody worked really hard in not very much time for a transaction of this type. We've been sorting through potential investors for the better part of this calendar year. In the end, we couldn't conclude. I'm not going to get any more specific on issues on either side."

Talks to keep Saab alive continued until Friday morning in Stockholm between the Swedish government, GM and Spyker, he said.

Smith said the Swedish government "tried very hard to be supportive. That has been consistently true. They were working hard to make a shoestring catch of a kind since the Koenigsegg proposal was taken off the table."

"(But) we have come up short," Smith added. "At this point, it's best to move on."

The Swedish reporters on the telephone conference call with Smith were uncharacteristically hostile. One asked: "What do you say to people in Sweden? You didn't want to give Saab a chance."

"Nothing could be further from the truth," replied Smith. "The ones that were qualified, we ran to the ground in great detail. We have attempted to consider another investor (Spyker) who was not in the original process. The GM team worked hard, but we couldn't make a match. Extensive efforts were made, but none can be found."

Another Swedish reporter asked: "You are winding down one of the most famous businesses in Sweden. How can you possibly not tell us what happened?"

Smith replied: "I respect the question, but the details of the issues that arose during the due diligence process are not items that we can share at the moment. Suffice it to say we tried very hard in a not very long period of time with representatives of Spyker to find a solution for Saab. But it's a complicated business. It shouldn't surprise anybody that in a short period of time, issues can arise. I appreciate that you'd like a lot of the details, but it's not something that I'm prepared to share today. Everybody worked really hard to make this work and sometimes things don't work out."

GM on Friday noted that the sale of its Hummer brand is still in process.

"We are in the process of selling Hummer," Smith said.

He said the Saab announcement does not put pressure on the sale of Hummer.

"I don't think it changes any of the work that is presently underway related to selling Hummer," he said.

Inside Line says: GM offers little in the way of explanation of why talks to keep Saab alive fell through. — Anita Lienert, Correspondent