GM Completes Sale of Saab to Spyker
DETROIT - General Motors Co. today completed the sale of its Swedish Saab brand to Dutch luxury sports car maker Spyker Cars NV, marking the first successful sale of one of its four unwanted U.S. brands, Automotive News reported. The transaction combines Saab Automobile and its 3,400 employees with Spyker Cars and its 110-plus workers under parent company Spyker Cars NV. “The focus as of today will be on getting back to business,” Jan Ake Jonsson, CEO of Saab Automobile, told reporters today. Executives want to refocus the identity of the Saab brand “to create an innovative, free-thinking company based on our Swedishness,” he said. The sale saves Saab from what appeared to be doom after Swedish supercar maker Koenigsegg Group AB backed out of a planned purchase in November. But Spyker -- whose logo bears a Latin phrase that translates, “For the tenacious, no road is impossible” -- made an offer during Saab's wind down. Negotiations took weeks, and skeptics included GM CEO Ed Whitacre. But in late January, Spyker inked an agreement to buy Saab. Completion of the Saab deal leaves GM facing a Feb. 28 deadline to complete a planned sale of Hummer to China's Sichuan Tengzhong Heavy Industrial Machinery Co. Saturn and Pontiac are being shut down.
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