Scandinavian suppliers body FKG says Saab has sent letters to around 700 of its members detailing a potential offer to pay 10% of its debt.
Saab is declining to comment on any offer but FKG managing director Sven-Ake Berglie confirmed the existence of the correspondence to just-auto today (21 June) from Sweden.
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“The 10% is on the table – they have sent out letters to 600, 700 suppliers with the 10% offer,” he said. “In a way it is reasonable, I don’t know why they [Saab] are so hesitating when it comes to communication.”
The 10% deal would be an initial payment, noted Berglie, to be followed by the balance in mid-September provided production at Saab’s shuttered Trollhattan plant could restart within two weeks.
A Saab spokeswoman in Sweden told just-auto production would be halted for this week and the next as it looks to secure further cash injections.
FKG will not be making a formal recommendation to its members concerning whether or not to accept the 10% offer, due to what Berglie said was “competition law compliance” that prevented the supplier body from issuing any guidance. However, he added that: “We can tell people what we believe and they can follow it or not.”
There also appears to a condition applied by suppliers to future dealings with Saab in that they will operate on a cash-on-delivery basis – a situation the FKG chief conceded was unusual.
“The whole story is unusual,” he said. “We have not heard of it before, no, never.”
Saab is attempting to broker a complex series of financial deals involving Chinese distributor Pang Da, manufacturer Youngman and a potential new purchaser of its property.
There are suggestions China’s National Development and Reform Commission has approved the involvement of Youngman in Saab but calls to the organisation by just-auto were unable to confirm this.
