STOCKHOLM, Sweden — Spyker's self-imposed Monday deadline to buy Saab has been extended, the Dutch sports-carmaker announced.
"Spyker has been in contact with GM today and continues to develop its proposal for the purchase of Saab," said Spyker in a statement. "Spyker has extended the validity of its proposal therefore until further notice."
GM said it will not comment on the extended deadline until it has finished examining new inquiries from unidentified parties to buy the brand.
Saab apparently won a stay of execution over the weekend as GM said on Sunday that it had "received inquiries from several parties" in the aftermath of the Friday announcement that it was starting an "orderly wind-down of Saab operations" because it could not sell the Swedish brand. At that point, Spyker made a renewed offer that was valid until 5 p.m. ET on Monday.
Emergency talks in Sweden regarding Saab's future did not hold out a lot of hope for the brand. "It is very late, there is a very tight timetable and that means the situation is very difficult," said Swedish Enterprise Minister Maud Olofsson, according to media reports on Monday.
Inside Line says: Saab's future continues to hang in the balance. — Anita Lienert, Correspondent
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rokg says:
02:08 PM, 12/29/2009
gm sell saab. if ford could sell volvo so can you. you can't just waste money by not selling. especially after the huge bailout you got from american taxpayers. have some decency. it's never to late to become responsible corporate citizen.
atenza94546 says:
03:54 PM, 12/23/2009
Time after time GM can't finalize the decision on selling Saab. Here are what I think.
1st) GM Europe are highly connected in terms of the tech for Opel, Vaxhall, and Saab.
2nd) GM probably don't want to continue to manufacture the vehicles for Spyker nor Koenigsegg until they can do it themselves which could be years to come.
3rd) Deal killer, keeping all production in Trollhattan, it is not cost effective at all for any manufacturer. You have lose some to gain some. Like a No Pain, No Gain.
4th) Last why keeping a brand that could be a direct competitor to GM Opel, and Buick.
Look GM are saving their own Brand instead, and leave Saab alone and let it die naturally and call Saab a brand that don't sell.
Will see how many younger buyer will buy a Buick! U.S. is very mature auto market, not a third world country which Buick are very stands out. Again why paid $40k for a Buick which you can get a Cadillac?? Also Coastal area in U.S. are less likely to buy a Buick, and Hyundai has proven they can be a entry level luxury car maker.
autoboy16 says:
01:24 PM, 12/23/2009
poor saab. I think anyone could do a better job with saab than GM did. Not only did GM do a horrible job of keeping the saab character, they gave them crappy cars. Yea, the 93 is great, but the 95 hasn't changed in forever. Then they give them a crappy Trailblazer and price it in the upper $40ks at a time when no one wants to buy suvs, let alone almost $50k for a Trailblazer when you can get a BMW X5 for that much. THEN GM takes the saab turbo v6 engine (2.8L Turbo), the last new saab motor, and uses it in lots of new GM vehicles such as the new SRX. Now GM wants to leave saab for dead.... Hmm, this is starting to sound exactly like what GM did to Isuzu....
Take their tech and use it (isuzu iTruck and Chevy Colorado/ Hummer H3), give them a Trailblazer (ascender), and then let them die slowly.
While I admit i dont know a whole lot about saabs, i do think GM could have done much better than what they did. I think the Saab Kappa cars would have been big sellers as well as a small Delta car with saabs turbo engines.
I think GM should almost be forced to make the brand better before they are even allowed to sell it, almost like what Ford did with Landrover and Jaguar.
firstclass says:
06:55 PM, 12/22/2009
Valiant effort Spyker but I guess trying to give GM a deadline didn't light a fire under them at all. I thought the deadline was a bit unrealistic but they wanted to force GM's hand before the deal was revoked. I hope this new news means a deal is being hammered out now. Not sure how serious GM is about these "inquiries from unidentified parties" or if there even is numerous parties biding for a piece of Saab at this point. GM Should consider themselves lucky Spyker wavered in their deadline. I know i do.