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.

Wednesday, February 8, 2012

Brightwell arriving in Sweden today

According to Dagens Industri, representatives of Turkish Brightwell Holdings are arriving in Sweden today. The goal is to make an offer on the entire Saab business.

"Our plan is to start production as soon as possible with as many models as possible," said Zamier Ahmed, board member of Brightwell Holdings, to Dagens Industri.

Ahmed is scheduled to arrive in Sweden this evening together with CEO of Brightwell Alphan Manas. Tomorrow they will travel to Gothenburg were they will meet an undisclosed law firm. Brightwell is reported to be trying to schedule meetings with both the bankruptcy administrators as well as with the Ministry of Enterprises.


Alphan Manas, Chairman of Brightwell Holdings NV

To help prepare the bid, Brightwell has, among others, gotten Saab's former CEO and Chairman Victor Muller on board.

"I know Victor Muller well and it is difficult to stop his enthusiasm for the brand. We get much help from him," said Zamier Ahmed.

Some who is not so enthusiastic about Brightwell are the suppliers of Saab according to Dagens Industri. And I guess you can put also me, the author of this blog, on the list of skeptics.

In response to all the skeptics in the automotive industry, Ahmed says that Brightwell has put together a car group of 10 individuals including "people from, for example, Ford and Land Rover." These people are currently working in Sweden to prepare "a detailed bid," Ahmed told Dagens Industri.

"It's easy to make mistakes and we want to avoid that," he said.


It will be interesting to see what kind of bid Brightwell will make, given all the noise Brightwell has made in the media and given the confidence they have shown regarding making a deal with GM for the continued production of the current Saab models.