Mystery Saab "Investors" Enable Dealer Denial

It’s a hard knock life for a truth-telling autoblogger. On one hand we have auto-related websites sitting in the happy-clappy pews—whose main contribution to veracity is reprinting PR releases for dissection and pointing us towards source material. On the other hand, we have Automotive News—who can’t ask a proper follow-up question even when the news source simply repeats the only word spoken in Mel Brooks’ “Silent Movie.” And then we have the big boys: The Wall Street Journal, New York Times and Bloomberg. Distressingly, these behemoths have shown a remarkable willingness to cite unnamed sources as the basis for their reports on the Motown Meltdown. Not that anyone (but us) is keeping track but the resulting stories are usually misleading PR put-up jobs, that turn out to be dead wrong. The whole “sale of GM brands” story is a perfect example . . .

This is the second time this week we’re reporting that the MSM is re-generating an obvious smoke screen for abject failure, dead brands walking and future dissolution. First, it was Saturn’s possible sale to an investment group calling itself Telesto—which turned out to be a GM franchise owner (hardly the kind of deep pocketed backer needed to run an entire car brand). Oh, wait, before that, we were told there were “ informal inquiries” with Saturn’s competitors for the brand’s sale (but not with Chevy, presumably).

You know where I’m going with this thing. Here’s Bloomberg‘s Saab “no money really” shot:

Saab Automobile, seeking a new owner to emerge from bankruptcy protection by June, has about half a dozen serious parties interested in buying the Swedish carmaker, a person familiar with the negotiations said.

The bidders include an individual investor, a consortium of Swedish companies and at least two private equity firms, said the person, who didn’t want to be named because the talks are private. None of the most likely bidders are automakers, the person said.

Anyone remember the last time a private equity firm bought an automaker? If not, there will be a stark reminder come May first. At least Bloomberg does the math on Saab’s date with death, before giving the idea that there will be life after death even more play.

Saab predicted it will make fewer cars in 2009 and 2010 than the 93,000 produced last year, and that it needs to make 130,000 cars to break even . . .

There are as many as 27 potential buyers, including car manufacturers as well as investment companies from all continents, Eric Geers, a spokesman for Saab, said by telephone today. The parties will visit Saab’s headquarters in the coming weeks to look at Saab’s business plan and new models, he said.

Is Bloomberg sure these aren’t just Saab owners (as in owners of Saab cars) on a factory tour? Never mind “serious bidders.” With so much worldwide auto production over-capacity, with the market in the toilet, with Saab’s brand heritage terminally defiled by GM, anyone putting money into this company is one of the money-parting fools.