Dutch luxury car maker, Spyker, has made a fresh offer to acquire Saab from General Motors (GM) after talks to save the company broke down last week.
The renewed bid follows Friday’s announcement that GM would start winding down operations at Saab, after the terms of sale between the two firms were rejected.
According to GM, the original deal by Spyker could not be completed in time to save the group. On Sunday, Spyker responded with an 11-point proposal which it claims addresses each of the issues that arose as a result of last week’s talks.
Victor Muller, Spyker chief executive, said: ‘We have made every effort to resolve the issues that were preventing the conclusion of this matter and we have asked GM and all other involved parties to seriously consider this offer.
‘We are very confident that our renewed offer will remove the impasse that was standing in the way of an agreement on Friday, and this would still allow us to conclude the deal prior to the expiry of the deadline originally set by GM of December 31st.’
The deal is still contingent on Spyker securing a loan from the European Investment Bank (EIB), but Muller added that the new offer does not depend on the loan being approved before the end of the year – one of the issues preventing the original deal from being concluded within GM’s deadline.
GM said that it will ‘evaluate each inquiry’ but would make no further comment until a conclusion has been reached.
As an ex GM man (Vuaxhall & AC Delco)
I think that it would be in the interests of the European Union to grab this offer before even more parts of our expertise flies off to China or other eastern counties.In the end the technology will be used against us when cars are sold back to us. Come on Europe stand up and be counted!
I agree – as an ex-automotive engineer I have seen over the last 20 years the automotive industry in the UK and Europe destroyed by poor management and investment decisions.
Lets give UK and EU manufacturing a chance to shine – we have the expertise and design ability but if it all goes to China it will be extremely difficult to recover.
It takes decades to grow a market sector but only a few years to destroy, come on EU show some leadership and get behind our manufacturing industries before they all go west!!!!
As a somewhat cynical observation, Audi, Volkswagen and Mercedes seem to control the European Motor industry, with some input from Fiat. It seems unlikely that Saab will be allowed to become a viable competitor in their marketplaces