"The bid has been withdrawn. We have been in contact with the administrators. Because of GM's attitude, we can not continue," said Ahmed to Dagens Industri.
Ahmed said that the negotiations with GM reached a deadlock on Monday.
"Everything was under control and we are awaiting final feedback from GM. They changed their mind in the last minute. Unfortunately, I must say I have never experienced such behavior from a company of that size."
It was the attempt to reach an agreement over the GM technology licenses used by Saab and the manufacturing of the Saab 9-4X at GM in Mexico which stranded.
According to Ahmed, GM did not say no to licensing technology, but at the same time GM did not give any definite answers.
"We have put a plan on the table to save Saab. GM has not only proven to be unwilling to cooperate. It is also my conclusion that GM wants to kill Saab," said Zamier Ahmed.
"Nothing has changed. We are not in discussions and have not been in discussions with anyone," said GM's spokesman James Cain to TTELA on Monday.
"We have received requests to open a dialogue from several third parties, but we have not opened discussions with anyone," Cain continued.
So one player out of the race. Anyone surprised? I am not...
We can hope that Brightwell's announcement is their attempt of saving face because they might know that they will not be selected by the administrators as preferred bidder for Saab.
The board members of Brightwell have been very vocal in the media with their continued claims to be in negotiations with GM and their naive optimism about reaching a deal. And now they blame GM, which is a bit foolish since GM has time and time again given a plain answer about Saab: We will not lincense technology and we do not negotiate with anyone.
GM killed Saab three years ago. It just took a little longer for Saab to die than they had anticipated.
At 9:00 CET today the administrators will hold their weekly press brief and maybe we can expect some news about Saab then.
