Funding to save Swedish carmaker Saab from bankruptcy has fallen through as Chinese investors would now rather take the company over, the Saab administrator said Friday, asking a court to halt its restructuring process. "The Chinese parties no longer wish to cooperate with Saab Automobile's (Dutch) parent company Swedish Automobile. (They) instead want to invest directly in Saab Automobile and thereby take over all ownership," said the carmaker's court-appointed administrator Guy Lofalk.
Swedish Automobile (Swan) confirmed in a statement Friday that its Chinese partners Pang Da and Youngman, which had agreed to inject 245 million euros ($335 million) into Saab in exchange for about half the carmaker, had now offered to buy the whole company. "Swan declined the offer," it said, adding it had "requested confirmation from Pang Da and Youngman that they are able and willing to consummate the (signed) agreements ... That confirmation has not been received to date."
In a filing Friday to the Vaenersborg district court in south-western Sweden, Lofalk said he did not think Saab would get the needed funds and he therefore no longer thought the company's three-month reorganisation under bankruptcy protection would be successful.
"It is my duty as administrator to apply for the reorganisation to cease," he wrote. If the court grants his petition, thousands of individual requests from employees and suppliers for Saab to be declared bankrupt, which have been put on ice during the reorganisation, will be reactivated.
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