so GM screwed the sale of Saturn and now Saab...

[thomsbrain]

<rant>

Does anyone else have to shake their heads in shame at this? How could they possibly have fucked both these deals? They had brands that only had one serious potential buyer each in the entire world, and failing to sell the brands meant accepting a total loss and zero recovery, yet they still let their buyers walk from the table without a deal.

ANY amount of money would have been better than not selling. They could have sold both brands for $100,000 and it would have been better than spending god knows how much to the lawyers to try to make the deals and then getting nothing. And since the taxpayers bailed out these chronic fuck-ups, I think it's bullshit that their failure to move the brands will mean that GM will take longer to pay back the loans. It's just a perfect example of the lack of basic business sense that led to their bankruptcy. Some money is always better than no money, dumbasses. Take what you can get and run. Don't drag it out for months until your buyers finally give up on you and walk.

I'll keep my eyes peeled for the "Hummer deal off the table" headlines sometime in the coming months. If these guys can't sell respected brands to Americans or Swedes, what makes them think they can sell the Chinese a brand with no future?

</rant>

 

[herm0016]

im sure its a pretty complicated process and im sure the buyers had nothing to do with it.... 0/10 for your crappy rant.

 

[Zap]

I've often wondered the same thing. I see a lot of empty storefronts in town and I know of one guy who owned a small business that went under, but he could have stayed in business if his overhead was lower. Nope, instead of agreeing to reduce the lease amount, the owners of the buildings would rather not make anything at all.

I don't get it. Do they get a huge tax writeoff or something? I know they still have to pay several thousand in property taxes.

 

[Bignate603]

Koenigseg (sp?) pulled out of the deal for Saab because they claim they didn't like the time it was taking for the transaction. I'm pretty sure that if they thought they were getting into a good money making deal they would have done what it took to see it through. It seems like something came up, either with their financing or their expectations of how much it would take to make Saab profitable and it's easier to just point the finger at the other guy.

 

[Kaervak]

The Saturn deal failing had nothing to do with GM. Penske couldn't secure a deal with Renault/Samsung to supply him vehicles after the 2010 GM cutoff. As a Saturn owner, that brand should die. GM has run in so far into the ground, it's just another badge engineering division.

The Saab deal failing seems to be mostly due to Koenigsagagassgsssgagaagasgasagasg not being able to figure out what to do with Saab. Do you buy things that you have no idea what to do with?

I'm not a fan of GM anymore, but to put ALL the blame on them is a bit absurd.

 

[KIAman]

GM (as a company, not their cars) are pathetic. I don't know the exact details but I would speculate the deals were called off because GM is still too high and mighty and most likely demanded too much. Look at their stupid comercials and their anouncement that they will start repaying the government $1 billion per quarter and ahead of schedule... using the government's money to do so.

Hindsight. Too bad you can't turn back time and let them collapse and vaporize as they should have without taking any money from taxpayers in the process. Oh well, it's just a small $100 billion mistake.

Edit: To those who think it wasn't GM's fault, really, GM could have easily sweetened the deal to the point where "not knowing what to do with the brand" could have been tolerable.
/rant

 

[RichieZ]

i would never buy a car from either of these brands, so new biggie

 

[XZeroII]

It's not like selling a TV on the internet. You don't just agree on a price and walk away. There are a lot of additional details that need to be taken care of.

You are incredibly naive.

 

[Mr.IncrediblyBored]

Edit: To those who think it wasn't GM's fault, really, GM could have easily sweetened the deal to the point where "not knowing what to do with the brand" could have been tolerable.
/rant

Right, they should just give away the brand to a potential competitor. These deals can get complicated. There are concerns over giving away IP and technology. Plus governments lobbying to keep jobs in the country. Plus getting investors to provide capital to overhaul the company once the deal goes through.

tomsbrain, you forgot about Opel in your rant. GM called off the deal and think they can restructure the company on their own. I have to admit the brand sell-off has been a catastrophy. But closing down a brand might be better than giving them away to a competitor.

Saturn - deal fell through
Pontiac - closed down (no sale attempted)
Hummer - sale pending
Saab - deal fell through
Opel - GM pulled out

 

[DivideBYZero]

Fuck Saab. How many posters in the Garage actually own a Saab? There's one posting at http://www.tfnn.net/forum, Rogodin, but that's all I know about.

Put it this way; At some point they will stop making Saab's. Big shit. However, the Saab brand may be worth something to someone in the future. This way GM can shit-can Sabb, sack all the people that work there because it's all over and hold onto the IP and brand. Finally they can either resurrect it with a new model OR sell the brand and/or IP to a 3rd party at their leisure. Doing so as a going concern appears to be a massive ball-ache and so they have decided to not bother. It's probably the best bet.

 

[Bignate603]

GM (as a company, not their cars) are pathetic. I don't know the exact details but I would speculate the deals were called off because GM is still too high and mighty and most likely demanded too much.

Yes, apparently you don't. The companies trying to buy Saab and Saturn weren't complaining about the price. Penske couldn't get the money to purchase and more importantly run the company all lined up. Koenigsegg's deal failed due to friction with their chinese partner and getting their financing sorted out. They weren't complaining about the price.

 

[sdifox]

I can't figure out why GM decided to keep OPEL though.

 

[DivideBYZero]

I can't figure out why GM decided to keep OPEL though.

They sell a lot of cars and most of them piss all over anything else from GM. GM's big mistake was not slipstreaming Opel models into the USDM five years ago. The half assed attempt to flog the Astra as a Saturn was pretty lame.

 

[sdifox]

They sell a lot of cars and most of them piss all over anything else from GM. GM's big mistake was not slipstreaming Opel models into the USDM five years ago. The half assed attempt to flog the Astra as a Saturn was pretty lame.

Well, that was part of the puzzle, if OPEL was so important to GM's future, why put it on the market? Then you get a whole bunch of people trying to make it work, get to the end point then tell them to fuck off we are not selling any-more.

GM managed to piss off the German Chancellor and the German Union in one move, not to mention Magna and that Russian Bank. That is fucked up. And they just announced layoffs. Yeah, great move...

 

[ElFenix]

Koenigseg (sp?) pulled out of the deal for Saab because they claim they didn't like the time it was taking for the transaction. I'm pretty sure that if they thought they were getting into a good money making deal they would have done what it took to see it through. It seems like something came up, either with their financing or their expectations of how much it would take to make Saab profitable and it's easier to just point the finger at the other guy.

i read yesterday that koenigsegg and its partners coulnd't agree on how to move saab forward

 

[PricklyPete]

I am sad by this turn of events. I was really excited with what Koenesigg (sp?) was going to do with the brand. While Saab has never made the best cars, they have made unique cars....and the new owners would have likely continued in that tradition, and hopefully started making cars that enthusiasts could grasp on to...really too bad this didn't happen.

Maybe GM will hold on to it for a few more years and possibly another buyer like Koenesigg will pick it up at a later time.

 

[RU482]

Koenigseg (sp?) pulled out of the deal for Saab because they claim they didn't like the time it was taking for the transaction. I'm pretty sure that if they thought they were getting into a good money making deal they would have done what it took to see it through. It seems like something came up, either with their financing or their expectations of how much it would take to make Saab profitable and it's easier to just point the finger at the other guy.

funny, I ready (from Automotive Times) that Koenigseg did not qualify for financing of the deal. Who'd a thunk...a tiny company trying to 4-10x in size wouldn't qualify for financing

 

[DrMrLordX]

I know nothing of the failure of the Saab deal, but it seems pretty clear that GM didn't want to effectively compete with a new, revamped Saturn selling rebadged Chevy/Vauxhall/Holden vehicles. One of GM's major problems going into the bailout/restructuring is that GM had too many divisions cannibalizing sales from other GM divisions.

Granted, had GM allowed Saturn to limp along as a GM clone reseller for awhile, maybe Penske could have taken the brand in a new direction eventually . . . but apparently GM didn't care to make that happen.

 

[Squisher]

What did I learn today?

I learned that those who have no knowledge of the situation blame GM.

 

[Bignate603]

i read yesterday that koenigsegg and its partners coulnd't agree on how to move saab forward

funny, I ready (from Automotive Times) that Koenigseg did not qualify for financing of the deal. Who'd a thunk...a tiny company trying to 4-10x in size wouldn't qualify for financing

I just flipped through a few more news articles, there's quite a few theories getting thrown around about why the deal died. Most of them deal with financing, problems with their partners, or being unsure of what the heck to do with Saab after they own it. The only reason I heard that even implicated GM at all was a complaint about the time frame it was taking to close the deal.

Honestly, it sounds like the buyer dug into the nitty gritty of the deal and realized that it wasn't as good of an idea as they had thought for quite a few reasons.