One Swedish car maker down and another to go.
With Chinese auto maker Geely Holding Group sealing its deal to acquire Volvo from Ford Motor for about $2 billion, that leaves only Saab�s fate up in the air.
The only hope for Saab is a small, ultraluxury sports-car company, Spyker Cars NV, which has kept its bid alive to buy Saab from General Motors.
Bloomberg News Saab’s Savior? Who is Spyker anyway? Outside of Formula One racing circles and the celebrity scene (Jennifer Lopez bought a Spyker), the Dutch auto maker is hardly a household name.
Spyker does have one thing in common with Saab: both sell relatively few cars. Saab has sold 93,000 cars this year, the least of any GM brand. Spyker has sold 36 cars through the third quarter.
Ok, this isn’t exactly an apples-to-apples comparison. That is because Spyker makes hand-built, high-end sports cars that retail for $250,000 each, while Saab mass produces sedans that typically sell for $40,000 to $50,000.
Spyker�s small size begs the question: How is a niche, sports car maker going to pull off not only acquiring Saab, but finding a way to keep the struggling company afloat?
Spyker is run by a chatty CEO, Victor Muller, a trained lawyer and Dutch deal maker who before coming to Spyker in 2000 restructured fashion companies and made several acquisitions while working for the offshore oil drilling company Heerema in Leiden.
Muller paints a picture of Spyker as the car of the ultrawealthy, a circle he himself moves in. (He owns a Spyker C-8 and collects Dutch art)
�We are not competing with Ferrari or Aston Martin,�� Muller told an interviewer in 2008. �When you have made your first million pounds then you go and buy a Ferrari, not a Spyker–not yet. That will take quite some time. Typically a Spyker buyer already owns or has owned well-known brand supercars and wants something that is different from that experience. We are on average the seventh car in their collection.”
Muller also professes that his pursuit of Saab isn’t driven solely by his love of the Saab design, but also by Nordic nationalism. He told a reporter at the recent Los Angeles Auto Show (a fellow Dutchman) the Dutch, Swedes and Danes �live in a very confined area� and have a common DNA.� �I think we should stand by each other.�
Of course, that common DNA has its limits. Spyker recently moved a production facility from Zeewolde, in the Netherlands, to Coventry, England.
With the bursting of the global credit bubble and end of the Middle Eastern oil boom, the company has struggled to find high-end buyers. Last year, the company had to use its brand name as collateral to obtain short-term loans with higher interest rates. Still, it says sales have stabilized in recent quarters.
Russian bank Convers Group, which is controlled by Alexander Antonov, is backing Spyker�s Saab bid. (In March, Antonov was shot seven times in an attempt on his life in Moscow.) His son Vladimir, 34, is the chairman of Spyker.
Can Spyker help Saab survive its near-death experience?
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