Saab Secures Short-Term Financing

Saab is a company that has been hit hard by the recent economic crisis, yet it manages to soldier on, selling 10,888 vehicles in the first quarter of the year, four times more than in the same period of last year. Now, Spyker Cars, has announced that it secured the short-term funding of Saab Automobile.

The money comes in the form of €30 million from Gemini Investment Fund Limited. Spyker has entered into a convertible loan agreement with Gemini with a 6 months maturity. The interest rate of the loan is 7 percent every year and the conversion price is €4.88 per share. In addition, Saab Automobile will make a drawdown request to the EIB for an amount of €29.1 million.

If all goes according to plan, the carmaker will thus receive a total of €59.1 million by next week, which will ensure that Saab Automobile secured the liquidity that is required to restart production.

“Saab Automobile aims to restart production within a week, pending agreements on delivery schedules with its suppliers. In order to improve lead times to customers and dealers on existing and future orders, Saab Automobile will work together with its suppliers to minimize any impact from the recent production stop,” the automaker states.

“I would like to apologize to our dedicated employees, suppliers, dealers and customers for the disruptions of the past weeks. We will do everything in our power to restore the confidence in our company as soon as practically possible,” explains Victor Muller, CEO of Spyker and Chairman of Saab Automobile.

Saab is still planning to bring four new products to market in the next couple of months, including the Saab 9-4X and the much awaited Saab 9-5 SportCombi, that are expected to boost sales in the second half of the year.