Jakob Consortium Joins Volvo Bidding

As posted earlier, the American based Crown Consortium finally made an offer, said to be on par with Geely’s, perhaps calculating that Ford will prefer an American buyer to the Chinese. According to Swedish business site di.se Roger Holtback of Crown confirmed to tt.se [sub] that the Crown Consortium has made an offer on Volvo. Geely still has the edge, though: according to Ford Spokesman John Gardiner to Wall Street Journal, Geely is still the “preferred bidder.” But that doesn’t mean it’s exclusive.And now, Swedish based Jakob Consortium, initiated by Volvo’s engineering union, with Volvo’s legendary, former CEO Søren “Gyll” Gyllenhammer as advisor, are ready to make an offer as well.Jakob’s spokesperson Ola Johansson, former information director at Volvo AB, tells di.se: “we have a sustainable business plan, and we’d like to talk to Ford ASAP, but it’s Ford whom sets the pace in all this.”The outline in Jakob’s businessplan is to run Volvo Cars as an independent Swedish-based company with close ties to Ford. “Ford is an obvious partner for years to come, with technology and platform-sharing and so on. Whomever buys Volvo needs to have Ford as partners, otherwise there’s nothing to buy. It’s part of the conditions,” Johansson says. And on the size of the offer: “That’s nogotiable, when we’re in that position. All valuation depends on what’s included in the price. It all depends on what, and how much Ford releases in the deal,” he says. But Johansson is not willing to reveal who’s behind Jakob’s finances: “industrial and financial investors from Sweden, Europe, and other parts of the world,” is all he is willing to say.