SHARE
COPY LINK

SAAB

Saab backer Antonov to open Swedish bank

Vladimir Antonov has revealed plans to set up a bank in Sweden, and the Russian financier says he is ready to make a major investment in Swedish automaker Saab, business daily Dagens Industri reports.

Saab backer Antonov to open Swedish bank

As Antonov seeks to establish a balance between low-risk and high-risk markets, his Latvian bank Latvijas Krajbanka is preparing to open for business in Stockholm.

“Sweden is a low-risk market compared to Russia and the Baltics, and I’m convinced that we have major possibilities in Sweden,” he told Dagens Industri.

Antonov has sold his stake in Russia’s Investbank, enabling assets held in his Convers Group to rise in value to 44 billion kronor ($6.96 billion), 4.5 billion kronor of which is his own capital, the newspaper reports.

Antonov was forced out as a major owner in Spyker Cars in order for its acquisition of Saab to go through amid allegations of money laundering and organised crime. In reality, he lent most of the roughly $100 million to Saab board chair Victor Muller’s company – money which was used in part to purchase Saab and in part to resolve Antonov’s ownership stake in Spyker.

Antonov told Dagens Industri he hoped to team up with partners to invest 3.5 billion kronor in Saab. He also still harbours hopes that Saab could open a production facility in Russia.

Earlier this month, he stated that he still wanted to put pressure on the European Investment Bank to let him be a financier of Saab, which he claimed the bank was not prepared to do.

He has already agreed to buy Spyker Car’s heavily-indebted sports car operations, and has also expressed his interest in owning Saab.

Member comments

Log in here to leave a comment.
Become a Member to leave a comment.

CARS

Former Swedish Saab bosses appear in court

Swedish car maker Saab's former CEO Jan Åke Jonsson and the firm's former head lawyer Kristina Geers have appeared in court in Vänersborg in west Sweden, accused of falsifying financial documents shortly before the company went bankrupt in 2011.

Former Swedish Saab bosses appear in court
Saab's former CEO Jan Åke Jonsson. Photo: Karin Olander/TT
The pair are accused of falsifying the paperwork at the height of the Swedish company's financial difficulties at the start of the decade.
 
A third person – who has not been named in the Swedish media – is accused of assisting them by issuing false invoices adding up to a total of 30 million kronor ($3.55m).
 
According to court documents, the charges relate to the firm's business in Ukraine and the paperwork in question was signed just before former CEO Jan Åke Jonsson resigned.
 
Both Jonsson and Saab's former head lawyer Kristina Geers have admitted signing the papers but denied knowledge of the Ukranian firm implicated in the case.
 
All three suspects deny all the charges against them.
 

Saab's former head lawyer Kristina Geers. Photo:  Björn Larsson Rosvall/TT
 
Saab filed for bankruptcy at the end of 2011, after teetering on the edge of collapse for nearly two years.
 
Chief prosecutor Olof Sahlgren told the court in Vänersborg on Wednesday that the alleged crimes took place in March 2011, when Saab was briefly owned by the Dutch company Spyker Cars.
  
It was eventually bought by National Electric Vehicle Sweden (Nevs), a Chinese-owned company after hundreds of staff lost their jobs.
 
The car maker, which is based in west Sweden, has struggled to resolve serious financial difficulties by attracting new investors since the takeover.
 
In October 2014 it announced it had axed 155 workers, close to a third of its workforce.
 
Since 2000, Saab automobile has had no connection with the defence and aeronautics firm with the same name. It only produces one model today, the electric 9-3 Aero Sedan, mainly targeting the Chinese market.