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Chinese firms to invest ‘billions’ in Saab

Chinese automakers Pang Da and Youngman, the new owners of Sweden's Saab, plan to pump some 7.5 billion kronor ($1.16 billion) into the firm, according to a report on Sveriges Television (SVT).

Published: 31 October 2011 07:49 CET
Chinese firms to invest 'billions' in Saab

The first stage of the investment amounts to 2 billion kronor earmarked for the firm’s factory in Trollhättan in western Sweden so that the production lines can be restarted after over six months of inaction.

The Chinese duo are then set to invest 5.5 billion kronor in the development of new car models, according to the SVT Rapport news programme.

The investment will in part be aimed at developing a replacement model for the current Saab 9-3 as a well as a smaller Saab model and two larger vehicles.

Eric Geers at Saab was unwilling to confirm the details in the reports but said that a restructuring plan to be presented on Monday will contain a “major investment”.

“There are new figures coming. I can say that there is an enormous support from our intended future owners. They want to invest heavily in Saab Automobile. That is clear.”

Pang Da and Youngman agreed on Friday to purchase Saab Automobile, according to a statement issued Saab owner Swedish Automobile.

“Swedish Automobile N.V. (Swan) announces that it entered into a memorandum of understanding with Pang Da and Youngman for the sale and purchase of 100% of the shares of Saab Automobile AB (Saab Automobile) and Saab Great Britain Ltd. (Saab GB) for a consideration of €100 million”, the company said in a statement.

After the announcement, the office of Saab’s court-appointed administrator, Guy Lofalk, withdrew a petition to abandon the reorganisation of the beleaguered Swedish carmaker, a step taken last week when talks with the Chinese partners to obtain €245 million ($335 million) in funding in exchange for about half the company appeared to have collapsed.

Swedish daily Svenska Dagbladet (SvD) reported earlier in the week that Pang Da and Youngman had instead offered a mere 200 million kronor ($30.4 million) to buy all of Saab.

After setting a price tag nearly five times higher, Saab’s charismatic chief executive Victor Muller told the TT news agency Friday he was “thrilled.”

“Now the company’s future is really secured. The future looks very bright now,” he said.

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FOOTBALL

The day a naked Swedish footballer caused an unexpected scandal

In 1949, a Swedish football player made international headlines when he dared to bare in Brazil.

Published: 11 April 2019 07:32 CEST
The day a naked Swedish footballer caused an unexpected scandal
Scroll down for the whole image. Photo: PrB/TT

This article is available to Members of The Local. Read more Membership Exclusives here.

Brazil would seem to be one of the last places in the world where a bit of nudity could cause offence, never mind create an international uproar. And yet that is exactly what happened 70 years ago when Swedish football player Sven Hjertsson dropped his drawers during a match in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. 

Faced with a broken waistband and unwilling to depart the field and leave his team a man down during the close match with Fluminense FC, the 25-year-old defender for Malmö FF made the decision to do a quick change near his team's goalpost.

From the Swedish point of view, the brief nudity this entailed was insignificant. Based on what the Swedish players, coaches and journalists had seen on Brazilian beaches during the 1949 tournament, they clearly assumed the Brazilians would feel the same way. What happened next proved just how vastly different the two countries' views of acceptable nudity were.

“The next day, the Swedish 'Naked Shock' took up full pages in the [Brazilian] megacity's newspapers. The upper-class Fluminense… had never been involved in anything like this,” journalist Henrik Jönsson explained in a 2009 article in the Swedish newspaper Sydsvenskan.

Recommended reading for Swedish history buffs:

In retrospect, it's difficult to say who was more shocked: the Brazilians by Hjertsson's mooning or the Swedes by the Brazilian reaction to it.

“It was a scandal! The Swedish journalists who were on the trip told us about the uproar. People went and confessed after the game. Dad thought it was ridiculous. On the beach, the Brazilians had minimal swimwear,” recalled former Swedish football player Bertil “Klumpen” Nilsson, whose father Sven Nilsson was a Malmö FF coach, in the Sydsvenskan article. “Hjertsson's white butt became the big topic of conversation when Dad came home. No one understood the Catholic double standard.”


The incident laid bare Sweden's and Brazil's different approaches to nudity. Photo: PrB/TT

In the end, Malmö FF lost the match 2-1. The team – the first from Sweden to be invited to Brazil – did not have an easy time in the tournament. The effects of a long flight, difficulty adjusting to the hot and humid climate of Brazil, and a serious bout of diarrhoea that decommissioned half the team during the first week, had all taken their toll. Champions at home in Sweden, the team nonetheless left Brazil without a win.

READ ALSO: Ten rules for getting naked in Sweden

As for the “Naked Shock”, it seemed only to burnish Hjertsson's reputation back in Sweden, and perhaps even overshadow his legacy to some extent. During his 12-year career at Malmö FF, the team won gold four times in the national championships. He also played 13 times for the Swedish national team, which was considered one of the world's greatest football teams between 1945 and 1950. In 1950, the year after the incident in Brazil, Sweden ranked third in the world ranking, ahead of Brazil in fourth place.

Hjertsson died in 1999, but the photo of him from 1949 lives on as a singular glimpse into international football seven decades ago.

Victoria Martínez is an American historical researcher, writer and author of three historical non-fiction books. She lives in Småland county, Sweden, with her Spanish husband and their two children.

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