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TROLLHÄTTAN

Dutch billionaire could save Saab: report

Dutch billionaire businessman Marcel Boekhoorn has upped his investment in Saab suitor Spyker Cars of the Netherlands, trade union newspaper Dagens Arbete reports.

Dutch billionaire could save Saab: report

The 50-year-old investment mogul is reported to have replaced the Antonovs, a Russian father and son banking duo whose major stake in Spyker represented a stumbling block to the deal for Saab owner General Motors.

With an investment portfolio ranging from Dutch free-sheet De Pers and daily newspaper De Telegraaf, to a wastewater treatment plant in China and a zoo in the Netherlands, Boekhoorn is one of the wealthiest investors in his home country.

News of a deal for the sale of Saab Automobile to Spyker Cars could come any day now, according to the CEO of the Dutch luxury automaker.

“Word will probably come tomorrow (Monday),” Spyker CEO Victor Muller told the Svenska Dagbladet (SvD) newspaper on Sunday.

Negotiations between Spyker and Saab owner General Motors (GM) are now in their final stages, with the Dutch company having offered about $500 million for Saab, its third bid for the Swedish automaker.

According to several media reports, Spyker has brought in additional financial backing. Sveriges Television (SVT) reports that the new financier has been approved by GM.

Earlier reports indicated that GM wasn’t satisfied with Spyker’s previous financing for the deal.

The local newspaper TTELA in Saab’s home base of Trollhättan in western Sweden, recently reported that an American investor purchased 5.5 million kronor ($758,000) worth of Spyker shares.

However, the entrance of an entirely new financial backer is seen as being more important than the stock purchase.

The Swedish government’s point-person for the sale of Saab, enterprise ministry state secretary Jöran Hägglund, is in contact with both parties in the negotiation’s final stretch.

He has let GM know that it’s “reasonable to assume that there can be a state guarantee” for the critical €400 million loan which Saab has sought from the European Investment Bank (EIB).

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TROLLHÄTTAN

Trollhättan remembers school attack victims

Hundreds of people on Saturday turned out for a torchlight procession in the small town of Trollhättan in southwestern Sweden to honour the victims of last year’s deadly school attack there.

Trollhättan remembers school attack victims
'It was an attack on all of Sweden,' Education Minister Gustav Fridolin said. Photo: Thomas Johansson/ TT

Three people were killed in an attack that shocked Sweden as a masked, sword-wielding assailant entered the school, stabbing students and teachers who appeared to be of foreign origin. Several people were also injured. The attacker, 21-year-old Anton Lundin Pettersson, was then shot dead by police.

“It was an attack on all of Sweden,” Education Minister Gustav Fridolin said as the procession ended outside the school.

In the week running up to the one-year anniversary, students of the school had made thousands of postcards in memory of the teacher, pupil and teacher aide who were killed in the assault.

A police investigation has showed that Lundin had planned the attack, which lasted around 10 minutes, after being inspired by racist websites.

A teenage student told The Local at the time that many people at the school at first thought it was some kind of a prank.

“I was in a classroom with my class when one of my classmates’ sisters called her to warn her that there was a murderer at the school. So we locked the door to the classroom, but our teacher was still outside in the corridor.”

“We wanted to warn him, so a few of us went outside and then I saw the murderer, he was wearing a mask and had a sword. Our teacher got stabbed.”

“The murderer started chasing me, I ran into another classroom. If I had not run, I would have been murdered. I’m feeling really scared. Everyone’s scared here.”

Trollhättan is an industrial town with around 50,000 residents.