Report: Chinese group makes bid for Saab

Stockholm (dpa) - Chinese group Youngman has placed a revised bid for bankrupt Swedish carmaker Saab, according to daily Svenska Dagbladet Monday.

Pang Qingnian, founder of the Youngman group, said the bid was made a week ago but declined to say how much it was worth.

Saab filed for bankruptcy in December.

According to the daily‘s sources the bid was worth 2 billion kronor (299 million dollars). Youngman was also willing to invest 12 billion kronor in developing new models, the report said.

The Chinese group‘s interest in Saab was due to "the brand, new technology and safety (technology)," Pang said, noting that Youngman had earlier invested 47 million euros (62 million dollars) in Saab.

Production as well as research and development was to remain in Trollhattan, Saab‘s main plant, in coming years, Pang said, but he admitted that it was problematic that many key employees had left the company.

The receivers handling the carmaker‘s bankruptcy estate were unavailable for comment, but have earlier said six or seven potential groups were interested in Saab.

Others mentioned in media reports included Turkey-based investment group Brightwell and Indian group Mahindra.

Youngman was in talks with the carmaker‘s Dutch owner, Swedish Automobile, until the December 19 bankruptcy filing.

Swedish Automobile took over Saab from General Motors (GM) in 2010. GM still controls key technology used by Saab and maintains a say over any possible deals.

Pang said Youngman had contacted GM in 2008 about creating a joint venture in China with Saab "but GM said no since it already had two (Chinese) partners." dpa lsm mat Author: Lennart Simonsson