Turkey's Brightwell Holdings May Be Saab Suitor

by Derek Kreindler

January 20th, 2012 1:32 PM

turkeys brightwell holdings may be saab suitor

Could Saab end up in Turkish hands? According to Bloomberg, Turkish private equity firm Brightwell Holdings will bid for the remnants of Saab, with a view to producing cars again.

Brightwell board member Zamier Ahmen told Bloomberg “We will make a bid very shortly, there’s no question,” but the company is still doing its due diligence. The aim appears to be a restart of production at Saab’s Swedish facilities, and a revival of Saab’s automobile lineup. Any deal must be approved by GM, the Swedish government and the European Investment Bank. As far as Islamic countries go (well, sort of – Turkey is officially a secular country), we’d take a new 9-5 over one of the Iranian Peugeot clones, but there will no doubt be many dissenting views in the comments.

#BrightwellHoldings #China #ChineseCars #Saab #SwedishCars #Turkey #Youngman

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9 of 27 comments

Athos Nobile on Jan 21, 2012

"we’d take a new 9-5 over one of the Iranian Peugeot clones" Hands down. But I doubt they will be able to produce a 9-5 at a price competitive with the Iranian Pug. At the right price, I'd buy a 9-3 Sportcombi. At the price they were charging here, no way.

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Obruni on Jan 21, 2012

this plan is doomed to fail, as long as production is kept in Sweden. SAAB needs volume. if the cost base remains in Sweden, SAAB is forced to compete with BMW, Audi, Mercedes, Lexus, Infiniti and Jaguar in the retail segment. the past decade has shown that it cannot. it cannot make up for the retail side in fleet sales either, as the CO2 emissions are too high. what is left? cut the cost base by moving manufacturing to Eastern Europe. revive that engine sharing deal with BMW to get your hands on low emission, fleet friendly diesel engines. and lower prices, targeting the Citroen DS line, Renault Latitude, and Skoda Superb/VW Passat in Europe; Acura, Buick, and Hyundai Genesis in the US.

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GS650G on Jan 21, 2012

GM will do everything they can to sink SAAB beneath the waves while appearing to be blameless.

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- See 2 previous
- SCE to AUX on Jan 21, 2012
  
  Saab did it to themselves, and their competition beat them also. GM's parenting skills - or lack of - have little to do with Saab's demise.
  
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- Krhodes1 on Jan 21, 2012
  
  @SCE to AUX And how do you figure this? Saab as a seperate entity ceased to exist eons ago. Saab was every bit as much a division of General Motors as Chevrolet or Buick, and had just as much say in it's own destiny as they do. The orders and the money came from Detroit. GM was the one that made the decision to produce the 9-5 virtualy unchanged from 1997 to 2009. It was a very competitive car in 1997, but by 2009 it was a joke vs. the rest of its price class. It was GM that cheaped out on the '03 9-3s interior and ditched the hatch that was a Saab signature, and then stalled the updates for ages. And the Trollblazer and Saabaru were 100% GM ideas, nobody in Trollhatten had the slightest interest in either one of those fiascos. Now, I will say that had GM not bought Saab they would have died 20 years ago, and that first decade of GM involvement was GREAT for Saab, they had really good product again for a while. But then in typical GM fashion they lost interest in the new shiny thing and left it to molder. For how to do it right you need only look a bit South in Sweden to Gottborg, and Fords handling of Volvo.
  
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- Robert.Walter on Jan 22, 2012
  
  @SCE to AUX VCC had already been in a better position to succeed, due to several factors, by the time Ford bought them.
  
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Bimmer on Jan 22, 2012

Has anyone seen two SAAB concepts (a 3- and a 5-door) based on 'flying vagina' Subaru? Pictures were at the end of that PDF, published in anticipation of last Friday auction.

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- Krhodes1 on Jan 22, 2012
  
  Yes, saw them in the metal last summer. MUCH better than the Trollblazer, and far more appropriate to the brand. There was a Trollblazer in the museum too - with no signs on it to explain what it was, sort of pushed off in a dark corner under the ramp. :-) Was that in the catalog, I looked though it, but not closely.
  
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- Bimmer on Jan 22, 2012
  
  @krhodes1 Yes, it was there too. SAAB had some pretty interesting concept cars, it's a shame that they never seen the light of day.
  
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