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GM Is Selling Saab To Spyker Cars
johncadengo writes "General Motors said today that it has struck a preliminary deal to sell Saab to Spyker Cars, a tiny Dutch maker of high-end sports cars, saving the Swedish automaker from what seemed like certain extinction after previous bids for it collapsed. A previous bid from Spyker was rejected by GM in late December because GM was uncomfortable with Spyker's Russian backers. The biggest investor in Spyker is the Russian bank Convers Group, which is controlled by Alexander Antonov. In March, Mr. Antonov was shot seven times and reportedly lost a finger in an attempt on his life in Moscow. No arrests have been made. His son Vladimir, 34, is a top executive at Convers and the chairman of Spyker." GM is taking a bath on the deal, financially speaking.
Death to niggers and spics!
This isn't nerdy at all... Have Slashdotters turned into bankers?
I used to want a 900 back in the 80s, then GM bought them. I hope Spyker can undo the damage GM has done, and turn the cars into something I would like again.
Sheldon
Correct me if I am wrong: In all of my financial learning, it is not "taking a bath" When you sell a product more for more then simply retiring the brand. In fact, you gain a profit if you now do not have to handle the termination of all the employees....
This is something, instead of nothing. I call it a win.
True, they would of been able to sell it for far more if they had not completely devalued the brand, but they have no right to complain on that fault.....
3 degrees of separation from Vladimir Putin
Did kdawson worry that we might think GM executives would have to take a bath literally?
Since GM got 50.4 Billion dollars in bailouts from US taxpayers, why didn't we just each get a free SAAB?
Aha! Spyker!
It's a no-brainer, same nationality, similar names, same sleek Euro image. Everything fits.
"Driving downtown when the lights are low..."
Spyker has 130-odd employees and builds around 40 cars a year.
Saab has 34,000 employees and builds around 100,000 cars a year.
Neither of them make money.
- Who is kidding who with this particularly peculiar "takeover"?
In Soviet Russia, you WILL buy our car! It doesn't cost an arm and a leg ... yet.
How about a (-2) 'hate speech' mod.
Offtopic,Troll or Flamebait is just not enough.
Then I can read slashdot at a -1 threshold without having to read this crap.
(some Offtopic -1 post are still interesting)
It is tangentially connected to someone getting shot?
... saab arises as new competitor to GM...GM loses. Again.
I run: Windows, OS X, Linux, FreeBSD. Just because you have a hammer, doesn't mean everything is a nail.
From a better source:
"But three crucial issues remained (and still remain): Spyker must deliver the cash, the Swedish government must guarantee a loan, and Spyker Chairman Vladimir Antonov must leave the company."
Many more details:
"The Antonovs were not allowed to start a branch of their Baltic bank Snoras in Britain.The British financial supervisory authority rejected the application, due to the Antonov's nasty reputation for being reluctant to cooperate with the authorities and their general uncommunicativeness.
It is still unclear why the oligark Vladimir Antonov was gunned down and seriously wounded in Moscow in March. But the Antonovs have operations in the harbour in Kaliningrad (former Königsberg), which is notorious for being controlled by the Russian mafia. Kaliningrad is one of the main harbours for shipping guns and drugs to western Europe. In Russia, it is assumed that the attempted assassination is linked to a struggle for power over the operations in Kaliningrad.
No Russian journalists dare to comment on the Antonovs on camera, but off the record they claim that the family has links to shady arms deals.
The Antonovs own a bank in Panama, known as a tax haven. It is not unusual for wealthy Russians to use banks in tax havens for money laundry operations, according to TV4."
About the only thing interesting about Saab was the turbo engines it used for a long time. Oh, and hatchback/wagon body styles.
Otherwise, it's become an overpriced front-drive Euro junk for many years now. It certainly don't got the German handling touch. More closer to halfway between a Beemer and Oldsmobile cows.
Go ahead. Tell me what so special about it. Something more than the superficial key hole in the middle aisle and the like.
Did I mention it's expensive to service this make?
Fuck systemd. Fuck Redhat. Fuck Soylent, too. Wait, scratch the last one.
Nerds buy geeky cars. Saab is a geeky car. At one point they had sodium inside the valves for cooling. They had standard turbochargers whey you couldn't get turbocharges.
At one point they also had 2-cycle engines (you had to add oil to the gas tank every time you filled it up) and, if you did it right, you could get the engine running backwards, giving you a car with one speed forward and four in reverse. If that ain't geeky, I don't know what is. You could probably win a lot of bar bets with it.
Sodium-cooled valves isn't all that geeky, though. The 292 CID V-8 in my 1964 Ford F-150 pickup had them, as do a lot of other heavy-duty vehicles.
This ain't rocket surgery.
So how does this work in car analogies? Do I have to find a computer analogy instead? ... does not compute.
Jumpstart the tartan drive.
I have a SAAB 900NG (post-GM). It's basically a Vauxhall Vectra with a SAAB look-a-like bodyshell and a large number of strange design faults compared with the Vectra. It's really expensive to get parts for it here in Australia despite sharing many of them with some Holden models. Apart from having a very large boot it doesn't really have a lot going for it. Its handling and performance aren't really up to much - I've experience far better in much cheaper cars. Frankly in hindsight I wish I hadn't bought it. While apparently the design improved with the 9-3 and beyond, sales have tanked. Why bother when the real SAAB died at the end of the 80s with the original 900 and almost any other car in its class is cheaper to run.
Superior European thinking will make this work! You heretical bastard! What you say? Did you call me Commie?!
With this "takeover", will Saab become an official car of Russian mob? and if so, will it become available in Moscow at Mob2 on FB?
To be fair, most of the players in the automotive industry haven't made any money in quite a long time.
-- If you try to fail and succeed, which have you done? - Uli's moose
OK, let's see how many readers get that pun...
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
One down, many to go.
The only money making divisions are in the U.S. and China. All the brands in Europe are simply parasites that drain GM's money.
New Economic Perspectives
1. Keep MSRPs where they are on the Turbo X, but fix Trionic 8 engine management and boost power output to compete with the 335i and 135i power output.
Costs Money
2. Go RWD and XWD in the new 9-3
Costs Money
3. Lower MSRP on the base "touring" and "comfort" sedans to what people actually pay for them (well under $30K) and institute "no haggle" pricing across the boar
Even more money...and the advertising, and paring the dealer network, all costs money. Saab has its fans for sure, but, its always been an overrated car, has never -really- been that profitable in the history of the company, and the fact is Saab was on the way to the scrap heap prior to being bought by GM to begin with.
If Saab were -really- that profitable, there would have been more than one buyer. But most people know what's up with Saab, and its a goner.
Screw the stupid Euro-fancy cars. Saab is a second rate BMW wanna be. If you want a geeky car, there's only one ultimate car, and that is an early 1970s American car, prior to all the stupid regulations.
a) used leaded fuel for knock reduction and maximum power. Yeah its bad for the environment, but it did make for great engines.
b) used great, thick steel, nice and strong
c) gobs and gobs of horsepower, and plenty of torque. There is no replacement for displacement!
My 73 Olds Delta 88 would crush your little Saab!
This is my sig.
So now a crappy ugly car gets built buy a car company that make ugly fast cars....
Convers Group wanted to pay the 74 million in cash in the form of $20s in paper bags.
Spiker's is horrible, 3 employees needed per car each year. Saab's is better, about 2.5 cars per employee. But that's still pretty crappy.
Spyker has 130-odd employees and builds around 40 cars a year.
Saab has 34,000 employees and builds around 100,000 cars a year.
So what you are saying is at SAAB each employee makes about 3 cars a year,
while at Spyker each employe takes about 3 years to make a car?
Somehow the numerologist inside likes that ;)
GM isn't losing shit really, I am, since I paid to bail their asses out and their making retarded decisions that even Timmy knows better than to make.
They didn't even bother to SELL their 3rd most profitable brand, they just terminated it.
These people need to be exterminated. They draw massive freaking salaries and have 0 accountability. Its time to pull out the tar, feathers and nooses. This time we hang the right people though.
Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
Kind of like what happens when you mix Swedish and Russian vodka :/
Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
Joy-in-trollhatten
Joy-in-the-troll-hat
Happy trolling everyone :)
Spyker has 130-odd employees and builds around 40 cars a year.
Saab has 34,000 employees and builds around 100,000 cars a year.
Neither of them make money.
- Who is kidding who with this particularly peculiar "takeover"?
Some of those 130 Spyker employees are high-level management. So let's reword it:
Saab is being bought by a Russian bank, who is installing Spyker executives as its management.
There's more to the auto industry than Detroit.
Toyota and VW were making huge profits before the financial collapse -- they will probably be joined by Ford and possibly GM when the global economy recovers.
Business. Numbers. Money. People. Computer World.
Let's see:
* GM is run by beancounters who landed GM where they were last winter
* Spyker can't produce enough cars and needs production facilties; which Saab factories provide in spades
* Saab needs passionate management, not an owner who will just take the best engineering Saab produces for other products, leaving Saab with crap to work with.
Given how badly GM has mismanaged Saab, it is amazing just how good the 9-3 and 9-5's track records are. They are extremely reliable (2003 9-3 teething issues aside; pretty much expected with any new car model), they are the best in their class for crash testing, are very comfortable, can achieve well over 30mpg(combined.. My best full tank to date is 36mpg) when driven conservatively. Handling is really good (the passive rear wheel steering helps!), it has the only stability control system and ABS I don't hate, and braking is incredible.
Saab can turn around. Look at what BMW and Audi have done; both have been at the brink of failure in the not so distant past.
The Christian Right is Neither (Christian nor right). See: Matthew 23, Matthew 25, Ezekiel 16:48-50
Ford/GM were bleeding cash like stuck pigs LONG before the GFC. It's because (with a few exceptions that are not mass market) they make bad cars in an inefficient manner.
I run: Windows, OS X, Linux, FreeBSD. Just because you have a hammer, doesn't mean everything is a nail.
Spyker builds 40 crappy cars a year but manages to stay alive due to verv good marketing.
Saab builds 100,000 good cars a year but nearly died because GM destroyed the brand.
Combining them can go two very different ways.
Slashdot social media options: AIM, ICQ, Yahoo, Jabber and Mobile Text. Why no MySpace?
True. I'm bullish on Ford because they've finally adopted a business strategy of selling higher-margin, higher-quality products worthy of their first world cost structure. It might take a decade for people to catch on, but IMO there's a good chance Ford will become the American VW, if not the American Honda.
GM ... I'm not sure if they've divorced themselves from the idea of "sell the most cars, make the most profits", despite the fact that "sell at a loss, make it up on volume" put them in bankruptcy court.
Business. Numbers. Money. People. Computer World.
I hope that the new owners find some of what Saab had before the GM takeover. They were interesting, quirky cars; since GM bought them they've become more or less generic eurocars with little to distinguish them from so many other brands out there.
I'm old enough to care little about cars these days - they're a tool for getting you about - but I do have a soft spot for Saab as my first couple of cars where Saabs.
Two thoughts on that: When Saab isn't required to buy substandard GM gear at inflated prices it may turn out to be profitable yet.
And obviously SAAB doesn't need to be profitable, if they manage to restore a bit of the brands credibility, that in itself will increase the share value enough to sell it back to GM with a profit.
A horrid waste of money in my opinion.
If Benny from ABBA had been called Sven, then ABBA would have been called SAAB. Jerry
It will give Saab employees a little bit more time to search for a new job.
That's all.
In Sweden during the 80's we used to say that those who owned a Volvo also used a PC (MS-DOS) and those who owned a SAAB also used a Mac.
For a nice date: Call strftime(3C)!
...and the venture money comes from Russia. Only the first chess move, so far.
The FF version of the Jensen Interceptor best fits the idea of "the first 4WD road car". It also had primitive forms of ABS and traction control.
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law
Saab sold 23,000 cars worldwide last year. MINI sold at least 25,000 units in the US alone. And Dead Brand Pontiac sold 27,000 units in the US in July, 2008.
So when they say Saab is a niche brand, they ain't kidding.
Not even the original submitter bothered...
Part of the reason this deal went through (when the previous one did not) is because one of the Spyker execs (Muller) effectively bought out his Russian partners - There is no longer any controlling Russian interest in Spyker.
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
Sorry, I couldn't resist.
Until about four months ago, I worked for a company that was a GM OEM supplier. I didn't work in the Automotive Group, but I saw the way they operated, and how GM operated.
There's a lot that needed to be flushed out of that company with a high pressure hose, but that wasn't, because they weren't forced into bankruptcy.
Because they were 'saved' from bankruptcy they remain the same festering mess. And it seems they probably will, indefinitely.
Can someone knowledgeable about AWD systems break down the differences between XWD, previous Haldex AWD and other AWD (say, Subaru's) systems? Most of us can look up the Wikipedia article for technical details, so actual performance in real life driving would be neat.
No need to go overboard into off road 4WD or competitive driving, thanks.
Saab has 34,000 employees and builds around 100,000 cars a year.
You are mistaken about the number of Saab employees by a whole order of magnitude.
BRAVO Kimvette:
hit the nail on the head!
SAAB had an amazing history of pioneering technologies and unique Sweedish design esthetics (which really is unique, and is more than IKEA).
They got buried in GM (who actually did a decent job rebranding Cadillac in the market), but never knew how to position SAAB in the market.
Wish this was finalized a few years ago prior to the 9-5 redesign (though it looks nice).
Here's praying that as they go forward and aren't required to pull from the GM parts bins we should see some real changes.
Someone in SAAB: PLEASE look back to the 900 prior to 94 and bring back the whale tale long slant hatchback...put that on top of the amazing best-in-class X-drive and you've really got something....like the Mini, not for everyone, but some unique bodies don't need to change for change's sake.
I got to see two of them about a year ago in Chicago (Chicago Auto Show 2009, McCormick Place)-even next to Ferrarri's and Lamborghini's, the Spykers turned my head! Although the other two cars I mentioned would likely kick its butt in a race, the Spykers win hands-down in styling. The engines are made by Audi. Pricing is around US $250K 'ish, and I really want one...
The U.S. taxpayer is taking a bath on the deal, financially speaking.
Fixed that for you.