General Motors is having problems selling Saab

General Motor’s sale of Saab seems to be hitting more and more problems as it sinks deeper. We already posted you on its pending, 90%-official sale of Hummer to Sichuan Tengzhong Heavy Industrial Machinery. This important sale awaits only Chinese government approval for the sale of its luxury offroad brand, rumored to be worth $150 million to GM. Tuesday morning, CEO Fritz Henderson announced that Koenigsegg Group AB (the investment group that owns Koenigsegg Automotive) has ended talks to buy Saab from GM. Beijing Automotive Industry Holdings, better known as BAIC, kicked investment into the deal late in the game, though Koenigsegg Group would have had 100 percent control over Saab.

SAAB Badge, soon a collector's item?

And there lies the likely reason that Koenigsegg called off the negotiations. It probably had trouble raising sufficient funding to convince the government of Sweden it could sustain Saab for more than a few years. Henderson expressed his disappointment over Koenigsegg’s withdrawal Tuesday morning, as he did when Penske Automotive broke off negotiations to buy Saturn.

2010-saab-9-5-front-view

We fear termination might be installed in the future for Saab. If this once popular brand is liquidated it’s a bad omen for the coming automotive year… GM surely won’t keep it once they decided to sell it. I mean, they wanted Opel and they barely kept that brand. Not to mention one they are desperately trying to sell.Sales and production have been way down in 2009. And Saab’s inventory is very low, so the cost of closing down the brand will be quite nothing compared to the financial effort of making it run again. An effort that GM can’t and most probably won’t take at this point of time…

Let’s hope someone will by Saab and keeping making these somewhat eccentric or in any case off-beat cars, because I for one was I fan…