We know you thought that you were waking up to a Saab-less world this morning, but the Jason Voorhees of car companies, Saab, just refuses to admit that it is dead and some business folks think that the brand name has value. Long story short, new offers have come in and one is the cash offer that GM has been looking for. As if this whole saga couldn’t get weirder, F1 boss Bernie Ecclestone is involved.
Ecclestone has teamed up with Genii, a private equity firm in Luxembourg, to make an offer for the brand. The amount has not been disclosed, but according to a story on USAToday.com, Ecclestone believes that Saab is a good brand that has been mistreated by GM. He’s right of course, but less than 8,500 Saabs were sold in the US last year and less than 26,000 cars in Europe. That’s a long way from being profitable and anyone who’s zany enough to jump into the car business these days and expect that they can make a massive sales turnaround happen over night should be drug tested prior to any sale being completed.
We’re not totally convinced that Ecclestone wouldn’t buy the brand and then flip it himself for a profit, perhaps to a foreign entity that GM is not willing to sell to now. We think he’s sly like that.
