Saab Secures EUR25M Loan, Hopes to Restart Production Within 2 Weeks

It looks like the first sunrays shine again on Saab’s street, as Swedish Automobile - the company who owns the Swedish auto brand - announced today it has entered into a EUR25 million convertible bridge loan agreement with Gemini Investment Fund Limited.

As a result of this convertible bridge loan (EUR 25 million), the sale of the real estate (EUR 28 million) and the sale of cars to a Chinese buyer (EUR 13 million), Saab Automobile secured EUR 66 million in additional funding this week.

The automaker says that if these funds will be received as scheduled, it expects to have secured the liquidity required to restart production hopefully within 2 weeks, subject to reaching agreement with its suppliers which includes feasible delivery schedules.

Also, upon receipt of Gemini's EUR 25 million and upon reaching agreements with its suppliers on payment terms, Saab Automobile hopes to complete its scheduled loan drawdown of EUR 29.1 million from the European Investment Bank (EIB).

“I am relieved to report that we made the June salary payments this afternoon from the proceeds of the sale of cars we announced last Monday. We again extend our sincerest apologies to our employees for the hardship the late payment has caused to them,” stated Victor Muller, CEO of Swedish Automobile and chairman of Saab Automobile.

“We have clearly gone through a very rough patch in the past few weeks and hopefully we can now reach agreement with our suppliers so as to ensure a resumption of our production in a controlled way,” Muller added.