Saab Worried by the Geely-Volvo Deal

In March 2010, Volvo, Geely and Ford proudly announced that they have reached a conclusion to their negotiations and that the sale of the Swedish carmaker to the Chinese will be completed by the third quarter of 2010. Since then, it has been all peace and quiet on the Volvo-Geely front.

It's exactly that peace and quiet which worries Victor Muller, CEO of Spyker and owner of the other Swedish carmaker, Saab. In Muller's opinion, the deal between Volvo and Geely is far from being completed and has many more obstacles to overcome before becoming a reality, if ever.

In an interview with just-auto.com, Muller expressed his concerns that the failure to reach an agreement with Geely would soon weaken Volvo. On the flip side, if Geely gets its hands on Volvo, things won't be much better either.

“My opinion is that there is only a 50-50 chance of the deal with Geely going through and time is running out. If the deal is done what will happen to Volvo in the future?" Muller told the source.

"We need two strong carmakers in Sweden to support big suppliers such as Autoliv. Saab and Volvo sit well together, they do not compete with each other.”

The Chinese connection is what caused Koenigsegg to lose control of its bid for Saab, Muller believes. Koenigsegg's attempt to get BAIC involved in the deal is exactly what caused Koenigsegg to fail, Muller says.