IMPORTANT NEWS: National Electric Vehicle Sweden has agreed to buy the assets of Saab Automobile and the sale is expected to be finalized during the summer.

Friday, January 20, 2012

Trollhättan City manager confirms Youngman ready to place bid

Swedish NyTeknik reports that City manager of Trollhättan, Annika Wennerblom, who is on the way home to Sweden after visiting Youngman in China, confirms that Youngman is now ready to place a bid on the Saab bankruptcy estate.

City manager Annika Wennerblom traveled to China on Wednesday accompanied by the region's development director Bertil Törsäter. Both were part of a delegation which also included representatives from the suppliers and the labor unions. The trip was organized after they received an invitation from Youngman to visit two of Youngman's factories and meet the Youngman management .

"Youngman has certain ambitions to buy Saab. So far, they have not had enough information to place a concrete bid. But now they are ready", Annika Wennerblom said to Trollhättan newspaper TTELA.

"There is no doubt that Youngman has the resources to buy and develop Saab Automobile with continued production in Sweden," said Christer Palm, who was representing the suppliers on the trip, to Dagens Industri.

"They want to have development and manufacturing in Trollhättan," regional development director Bertil Törsäter told GP, and continued saying "My clear impression is that this is their ambition".

But he also said that Youngman has not been satisfied with the communication from the bankruptcy administrators.

"They have had a hard time getting the required information," Bertil Törsäter said.

The problem was to get information on which parts of the bankruptcy estate is on sale and which parts are not. But now in the last stages before the bid will be placed "a more intensive dialogue" between Youngman and the administrators have taken place.

In other words, next week we will almost certainly see a bid on Saab from Youngman.