Rearview mirror: Inside Saab, SWAN, GM and a loss

Saab Blogger legend Steven Wade accompanies our dealer tour and has posted new pictures online. The tour is receiving a lot of attention in the Saab world, and as mentioned earlier, other countries will adopt our concept.

I sent Steven some more Saab pictures of famous places in Germany like the Semperoper or the Frauenkirche in Dresden. And we see, our new Saabs cut a good figure everywhere.

While rocking in Saab in Germany, which will only be the beginning of the rebirth of our cult brand, the shareholders of “Swedish Automobile” are likely to be in for a shame.

SWAN

Shareholders meet at 11. November to extraordinary shareholder meeting to seal the sale to Lotus Youngman and Pang Da. The price of the stock is in free fall and the proceeds from the sale of Saab just for the worst liabilities. Then remains as the last asset still Spyker, where so far only sales intentions exist. It's getting bitter for shareholders, they can stick with it because they're Spyker or Victor Muller fans. Or realize the losses.

GM

The analysts in Sweden have been writing for days about GM's role in the Saab sale. It is now agreed that GM has no choice but to agree to the sale. If you do not do it, you get an image problem and a problem with the NDRC. Saab, as you can see, will be a strong competitor to the GM partner in China, SAIC. But without NDRC and without the party in China nothing for GM.

By the way, not for the new Saab owners who maintain their networks in China. Pang Quingnian, the CEO of Lotus Youngman, is not without reason delegate of the party congress.

Gunnar Brunius

A big loss for Saab Automobile AB is the departure of production manager Gunar Brunius. He only switches to Volvo Aero across the street, but he'll leave a gap. Brunius has been with Saab since 1981 and will shortly be head of “Global Production” at Volvo Aero. His name has often been mentioned recently as the new Saab CEO, which was very flattering for him, as he says.

It is time for him to do something completely new. As much as we regret his departure, we also wish good luck from Germany. And we thank you for the tireless dedication to our brand, especially in the last, difficult months.

And there was still ... ..Cheetah

The project to make Saab fit and slim should have been completed. 500 workplaces should be omitted. Negotiations are still going on, because Trollhättan is careful not to risk any damage to the individual departments with the downsizing.

Text: tom@saabblog.net