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SAAB BANKRUPT

SAAB

Five buyers ‘seriously interested’ in Saab

Up to five companies are keen to buy Saab, one of the bankrupt Swedish carmaker's three administrators said Sunday.

Five buyers 'seriously interested' in Saab

“I can’t comment on who we are in discussions with, but we are conducting dialogues with four to five interested parties who we consider are seriously interested,” Hans Bergqvist told the TT news agency.

He said the aim was to sell all of Saab, which filed for bankruptcy on December 19, to a single buyer.

“That is our main tack (since) we… will get the most value,” he said, adding that administrators were also looking at the possibility of selling off parts of the business piecemeal.

Chinese carmaker Youngman has shown keen interest but its bid to snap Saab up before it declared bankruptcy was thwarted by the Swedish brand’s former owner GM, which balked at transferring the necessary technology licences.

A delegation from the Chinese company will reportedly arrive in Sweden on Monday to try to hammer out a deal.

Indian commercial utility vehicles manufacturer Mahindra and Mahindra is also interested and company officials have reportedly prolonged a visit to the Saab factory in the southwestern town of Trollhättan to pursue talks.

Turkish private equity firm Brightwell Holdings has also expressed interest, with board member Samier Ahmed saying that “We will place a bid as soon as they (the administrators) are ready to accept bids.”

Bergqvist said the administrators hope to have a deal in weeks.

“We have to (hurry) due to the economic situation we are in. To make it possible for someone to restart the activity again, we have to keep the factory in good shape, and that costs an incredible amount of money,” he told TT.

Earlier this month, the administrators sold off the Saab museum to the town of Trollhättan, for 28 million kronor ($4.2 million), he said.

Administrators are also trying to sell surplus stock of equipment like engines, he added.

Saab was already on the brink of bankruptcy when GM sold it in early 2010 to Dutch company Swedish Automobile (SWAN) — at the time called Spyker – for $400 million.

The past two years have been lined with desperate efforts and numerous failed deals to keep it afloat.

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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.