Saab rescued by equity firm in the United States, but challenges remain

Posted: October 24th, 2011 | Author: | Filed under: Saab | No Comments »

An investment firm headed by racing car lover Alex Mascioli which purchased the sports car firm from the Saab Dutch owner last September is thinking of injecting $70 million to help keep the car company afloat as the bridge financing from Chinese investors look bleak.

Swedish Automobile that holds control of Sweden’s Saab confirmed that they are accepting a $10 million investment and a loan of $60 million from the North Street Capital owned by Mascioli to help with its reorganization.

The overall picture though is still not good enough for Guy Lofalk, the administrator of Saab, who plans to file a petition in the Swedish courts so it will stop the voluntary reorganization of the automotive firm. Saab however said that it will block this petition and request the courts for the replacement of the current administrator.

Last June, Swedish Automobile had a non-binding understanding with Zheijiang Youngman Lotus Automobile of China to acquire a 29.9% share and Pangda Automobile to get 24% stake for a combined funding of around $338 million.

In the early part of 2011, Noth Spyker acquired luxury car brand Spyker from Swedish Automobile for around thirty two million euros.

Swedish Automobile has been trying hard to avoid bankruptcy for the past months while looking for new investors and releasing a number of assets in order to pay off employees, settle bills with suppliers, and resume production in their factory in Sweden.

North Street will be acquiring 2.38 million shares of Swedish Automobile which were recently issued. Documentation for this transaction is expected to be completed by next week.

Leave a Reply