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SAAB BANKRUPTCY BATTLE

SAAB

China’s Youngman bids anew for Saab: report

Chinese automaker Youngman has offered to buy bankrupt Swedish carmaker Saab for 3.2 billion kronor ($470 million), according to a report in Swedish business daily Dagens Industri (DI).

China's Youngman bids anew for Saab: report

“That’s the lowest price that the major pledgees and real estate owners will accept to settle their pledges and their property,” a source told DI.

According to the paper, the Chinese firm has also promised to invest an additional 10 billion kronor in order to restart production at Saab’s factory in Trollhättan in western Sweden, a facility which has been more or less at a standstill for a year.

India’s Mahindra & Mahindra is also reportedly negotiating with bankruptcy administrators in hopes of laying claim to what’s left of Saab Automobile, which filed for bankruptcy protection in December 2011 following months of financial problems.

Meanwhile, Pang Da, the Chinese carmaker which for a long time was extremely interested in taking over Saab, has reported that its efforts to revive the cash strapped Swedish brand cost it dearly.

In 2011, Pang Da paid €45 million ($59 million) in advance for cars that Saab was supposed to build.

But the cars were never made, and now Pang Da reports that the payment has hit the company’s 2011 earnings, which sunk by 43 percent, according to Automobile News China.

The report comes following a tense hearing in Vänersborg District Court on Monday during which former Saab CEO Victor Muller and Guy Lofalk, the court appointed administrator who had been charged with trying to reorganize Saab to avoid a bankruptcy filing, testified to the accuracy of a recently completed inventory of Saab’s debts and assets.

The review revealed that Saab had around 13 billion kronor in debts against 3.6 billion kronor in assets.

During the hearing, Muller criticized Lofalk for the way he handled the reorganization as well for accepting too high a fee for his work.

Muller went on to demand that Lofalk be required to repay part of the €1.2 million he and his staff were paid and that the administrator also be made to pay damages for doing a poor job.

Lofalk was left stunned by the request.

“I’ve been seen anything like it,” he told the TT news agency.

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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.