Great Job, Victor Muller: Saab Produced $2 Billion In Unpaid Bills

by Bertel Schmitt

April 5th, 2012 2:42 PM

great job victor muller saab produced 2 billion in unpaid bills

Before and after Saab had gone bankrupt, pipe-dreamers thought that the company can be revived with just a few million dollars. The number commonly used was $50 to $70 million. We maintained that it would cost a few billion dollars to get the company going again.

As it turns out, we were way too optimistic.

Saab’s unpaid bills are between SEK12-13 billion (USD1.8-2 billion) says the Wall-Street Journal. The number is based on information from the court-appointed receivers. A full accounting will be published on April 10.

The books must have been in a royal mess if it had taken until now to establish total debt with a ten percent variance.

It is no surprise that no buyer was found for Saab as a whole. The buyer would have shouldered the $2 billion in debt and would have needed another 2 billion at least to have a chance at viability.

Also on April 10 is the final deadline for bids for Saab assets. According to the Journal, “a handful of parties are interested in buying Saab Automobile’s facilities in Trollhättan, Sweden. All of them are interested in producing cars at the plant.”

#BertelSchmitt #Saab #Sweden

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6 of 33 comments

Omnifan on Apr 05, 2012

I'm sure that Mr. Muller paid himself first and IN FULL :)

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- Jeff_vader on Apr 30, 2012
  
  Funny you should mention that... The Swedish media is reporting that Spyker are suddenly 14 million euros in profit. The reason that a car company that only seems to have produced about 50 cars in its life and according to Mullers "close personal friend" Mr Antonov hasn't actually delivered a car in over a year is now making money is that these reports are saying that Muller buried Spykers debt into Saab GB. So Muller walks out of the Saab/SWAN/Spyker debacle with his original company now debt free and in a better state than when he went in. Really??? I wonder why no one saw that one coming?
  
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Aristurtle on Apr 05, 2012

Um, yes? Of course they had unpaid bills. They went bankrupt. That's what bankruptcy is!

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- DaveDFW on Apr 05, 2012
  
  You've got it! Companies don't file for bankruptcy unless they have unpayable debts.
  
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Inside Looking Out on Apr 08, 2012

SAAB could not survive no matter what. First it never was a luxury brand to justify premium price. SAAB with its limited appeal and volumes could survive only if it was making rebadged Opel. But SAAB engineers kept ignoring this fact and trying to re-engineer what ever GM was offering them. There is nothing wrong about it but at volumes it sold and labor cost there was simply no way to make any profit these way. SAAB was insolvent for decades.

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Binkje on May 21, 2013

3 former Saab board members arrested for tax evasion. All over the news in Sweden. What a surprise...

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