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SAAB BANKRUPTCY BATTLE

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Saab bought by electric car consortium

Saab bankruptcy administrators on Wednesday confirmed the purchase of Saab by National Electric Vehicle Sweden (Nevs) during a press conference at Saab headquarters in Trollhättan, southern Sweden.

Saab bought by electric car consortium

“It is a great day today for me to stand before you and say we have reached an agreement with the administrators,” Nevs CEO Kai Johan Jiang said during the press conference.

Earlier this month, the group of Chinese and Japanese investors said they submitted an offer for Saab in April, before the deadline for bids expired.

The Swedish-registered firm founded by a Hong Kong-based company specializing in alternative energy and a Japanese investment fund, declined to disclose the amount of the offer at the time.

However, on Wednesday an agreement was signed.

“Nevs and the Receivers of the Saab Automobile bankruptcy estate today signed a purchase agreement which covers the main assets of Saab Automobile AB, Saab Automobile Powertrain AB and Saab Automobile Tools AB,” NEVS and Saab bankruptcy administrators said in a joint statement.

Chinese carmaker Youngman was also known to be interested in buying Saab.

Swedish media have reported that Youngman placed a preliminary bid in late January or early February of about two billion kronor ($280 million).

Youngman has long been interested in Saab and tried to snap it up before it declared bankruptcy but those efforts were thwarted by the Saab’s former owner, General Motors, which balked at transferring the necessary technology licences.

Reports have also surfaced that Indian commercial utility vehicles manufacturer Mahindra & Mahindra has placed a bid as well.

Saab was 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.

Bankruptcy administrators said in April that Saab had assets to cover only just over a third of its debt of 13 billion kronor.

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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.