schreef:
No white knight for Saab?By: Simon Warburton | 24 June 2011Even by Saab's standards, it's been a tumultuous week.
The news the automaker would not be able to pay its staff for June has heaped yet more indignation onto an institution that has seemingly reeled from almost continuous blows for several months on end.
Today (24 June) is a public holiday in Sweden - although Saab staff will presumably be using the time to weigh up their options in a bid to find further employment after the shock development yesterday - but in truth it has been building to this for some time.
Reading the runes today doesn't seem quite the byzantinely complex exercise it did only last week. Then, a series of Chinese investors - namely Pang Da and Youngman - continued to put themselves firmly in the frame while the effervescent Victor Muller clocked up yet more airmiles in pursuit of yet more potential investment.
But when a company can't pay its employees, when those same employees have mortgages and bills to pay, then surely the game is up.
The CEO of Europe's supplier body - CLEPA's Lars Holmqvist - said as much today to just-auto when he called for Saab to put itself out of its own misery and declare itself voluntarily bankrupt. "It is the only decent thing to do," he said.
The 'B' word is one Saab has understandably avoided for several months now, but it is surely staring down the barrel of bankruptcy as the odds grow ever longer against it resuming production.
Holmqvist does not mince his words. His members are perhaps understandably angry at what he says could be losses of up to EUR100m (US$142m) and even a last-ditch offer by Saab to pay just 10% of outstanding debt does not appear to have borne fruit.
"I think there is only one thing left for Saab to do and that is to declare bankruptcy so employees can get the state guarantees [of] salaries for six months," said the CLEPA boss, who also doubted whether the Chinese government would approve investment by Pang Da and Youngman.
An apocalyptic vision was also painted by the unions to just-auto on hearing the news its members would not be paid. Saab's largest union, IF Metall, said up to 10,000 jobs could be lost in manufacturing and by suppliers - a catastrophic figure for western Sweden that could see a snowball effect on suppliers and, in turn, their suppliers unable to meet their own debts.
And what of the government in all this? Will it let Saab go to the wall with all its attached automotive and engineering expertise or will it step in and risk the wrath of EU competition regulators?
So far, it has shown extremely limited inclination to intervene in the affairs of Saab, while at the same time the bureaucrats of the European Investment Bank in Luxembourg remain remarkably silent. "We are not a liquidity provider," was its previous take on Saab.
But perhaps the most gloomy - or the most realistic - prognosis comes yet again from CLEPA's Holmqvist. "There is nobody, no white knight who is arriving," he told just-auto.
There are uncanny similarities at Saab with what happened to MG Rover in the UK as my colleague Graeme Roberts elequently outlines here. The region around Trollhattan could equally face similar employment challenges to those encountered in the UK's West Midlands should Saab fail.
Today's midsummer public holiday in Sweden will give Saab's embattled workforce some time to reflect what will happen should the worst occur, although yet more developments could yet arrive after the long weekend from China or Muller's US trip to bang the Saab drum.
But in fairness, the enforced shut-downs of the past few months have given Saab staff only too much unwanted free time to work out just what they will do should bankruptcy be the only option.