Saab Subsidiary Narrowly Avoids Bankruptcy As Suppliers Lose Faith

zzzzzzzzzzzz...huh? hmmm?...okay, back to sleep...zzzzzzzzzzzz

What we are seeing in this case is how long it takes for a manufacturer as small and inconsequential globally as Saab, goes out of business. So, to all those people who believe that the Federal government just had to jump in to save Chrysler, take a good look. It would not have happened as the politicans claimed. But then, why would anyone believe these guys anyway? Which one of them ever ran a business?

For 8-months, prior to Chrysler going Ch 11, I was the lone voice in the management ranks of our 2 billion (in sales) company ringing the bell that Chrysler was going to go bankrupt, and if we didn't aggressively act to 1) position ourselves for that eventuality, 2) throttle back our inventory by reducing orders to our sub-suppliers, 3) become the squeaky-wheel and threaten to stop-shipping unless Chrysler paid us all our open claims for a) material-price adjustments, b) obsolescence, and c) compensation for order quantites way under the contractually agreed amount - this one being a biggie because it caused us to not recover our amortized investments and development expenses, then Chrysler would continue to stiff-arm us (as they had for the previous year) all the way until they filed for creditor protection. If they had gone into Ch.11 in a normal environment (not one in which the supply base was so close to the edge), or Ch.7 dissolution, then we would not have seen the 100% recovery of our open invoices (these not being in any way related to points a-c above) as we did in the actual case, and we surely would not have seen any recovery of points a-c. It is hard to relate the depth of resistance and denial, within our organization, to the sinking of Chrysler. You would not believe how my colleagues, be they the board, or operativly-involved guys, alternated between belief and hope, and how some, for fear of "destroying the relationship", practiced denial or obstructionism in implementing a "hardball" strategy in making ourselves whole prior to a general collapse of the customer. At the time that all this was going on, we had over the course of our 25-year relationship, gone from a very comfortable and profitable relaionship (one that I too was emotionally invested in, as I had significantly contributed 10 years of my early career to building-up that relatonship) to one of vastly diminished margins and seemingly endless squabbling over legitimate claims like a-c. My analysis showed the end was coming. Common-sense told me that Chrysler would try to delay this by hoarding their cash-pile, in part, by stiff-arming and slow-walking supplier open claims for a-c like items. And that the patient suppliers, and the slow-movers, would be the ones with the most to lose (in such a situation, there are only The Quick and The Dead.) We had to become the "squeakyiest wheel in Chrysler's supply base" if we were to stand a chance of ever seeing the money attached to the a-c items, and, in the event Chrysler did not go Ch.7, seeing that our P.O.'s for continuing business would be properly adjusted to take into account the a and the c items (else we would just sink back into the same hole of gradual loss due to material price invlation and non-recovery of amortized items.) Many of my opponents within our company accused me of trying to "torpedo Chrysler" (so untrue, as I too was sentimentally attached through my career, my grandfather's employment there, my friends, my fondness for classic MOPAR ...) and that "if all companies did what I advocated, Chrysler would go Ch.7/11 for sure", to which I could only reply that the first was not true, and the second was not my, or my colleagues, primary concern (because what we were paid for was not sentimentality, or corporate charity, but to protect our company from the effects of Carmegeddon.) One of my continuous themes as I tried to explain that playing hardball, under these circumstances, would not ruin our relationship was that, in their hearts, the Chrysler folks knew that we had been an above-average supplier, loved in all corners of Chrysler, and that our "impudent" action of setting a future date to cancel our contracts and quit the business, unless we received immediate payment in-full, was a consequence of a dire situation, not representative of how we had ever acted, or would act, except for the circumstance Chrysler itself had brought us into. And that in any other context, they could continue to count on us as a Platinum trouble-free cooperative and innovative supplier. In the end, but just barely, because I ramped-up my hystronics, we were able to position as one of the few suppliers that was able to negotiate with leverage to recover all of our claims during the bankruptcy process, most others - supplying production parts - received 100% of their receivables, but not 100% of their open claims, for those they received far less, and for non-production suppliers, of things like services or office materials, I suspect that these received even less (but don't know for sure.) Note: Because I had been the great advocate of this action, I was re-assigned by the board of management to manage the issue; I was never sure if a) they felt I was the most competent one to handle it (which I humbly claim is true, being the most part, not that they knew this part) or b) they wanted to have a guy to hang this on if it went down poorly... Regarding the instant case of the tooling shop trying to recover its money, this was what they had to do to be the squeaky wheel. If they have been, and remain to be, a good supplier in all other aspects, and if SAAB is honest with itself, then there will be a continued, mutually beneficial, relationship in the future. In our case, we could have absorbed and survived any Chrysler-induced loss (but that is not my approach to business). But we were quite concerned that there was a high-likelihood of a general-stop in U.S. production orders, and income, from Chrysler and Ford (because of uncontrolled collapse of the supply base) if Chrysler and/or GM suffered a messy and protracted shut-down and dissolution/re-orginazation (then, even I was short-working 4 days of 5 due to the crisis). In the case of a much-smaller company, like SwePart, they may not have the luxury of having fat global contracts to cushion them against the failure in one market, or of one customer as we did. And that a non-recovery of what is owed to them, was not an option, and that against their better hopes (due to history, sentimentality, patriotism, etc.) as stated in their application to the judge, they probably needed to do this to not be sucked down and drowned by the suction of a sinking SAAB. SwePart, if it was playing the "squeakiest wheel in the supply base" angle, probably could only do what they did to try and get their cash. As I know, for deep personal experience, how hard such a call is, and then seeing it through to completion, I salute the balls of the guy (or gal) that made the call to do this, and wish them luck, and success in the future. (I hope this story was not too boring.)

If Saab were a horse ... BANG!