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Automotive Industry
AUTOS: U.S. Equity Firm To Buy Spyker
Dutch luxury-sports-car company that rescued Saab could be sold for $44 million.
Dutch supercar builder Spyker recently showed off its new C8 Aileron Spyder. (Photo: Wouter Melissen)
The company that owns struggling Saab is getting ready to sell its Dutch sports-car unit, Spyker, to a U.S. private-equity firm for $44 million, although the deal has yet to be finalized.
Spyker is credited with buying Saab from General Motors and thereby saving the Swedish automaker. Since then, the supercar company headed by Victor Muller has reorganized things, keeping Saab and Spyker separate, while setting the whole thing up under the umbrella of a new company, Swedish Automobile.
But things haven't gone all that well for any of them, with Saab leading the way in the midst of bankruptcy action. Now Swedish Automobile is prepared to break off the Spyker side of the business and sell it to North Street Capital.
Spyker is best known for exotic supercars that sell for more than $200,000, including the acclaimed C8 Aileron. But it has been losing money and sold only 36 cars in 2009, the latest year available.
Russian-backed British coachbuilder CPP has also made a bid for Spyker and got as far as signing a memorandum of understanding with the company earlier this year. The MOU has since expired, but CPP said in a press release today that it is "still keen to progress our proposed acquisition" and won't count itself out until the sale to North Street Capital is completed.
What a sale to either company might mean for Spyker is unclear. It could be chopped up and sold for parts, or like Chrysler under Cerberus management, continued as an ordinary business. It seems likely that it could provide a quick shot of much-needed cash for Swedish Automobile and its remaining automotive operation, Saab. That would be good for Saab and perhaps the market as a whole.
Saab recently won a decision by a Swedish court for short-term protection from creditors, buying it time to finalize funding from a pair of Chinese investors.
Spyker is credited with buying Saab from General Motors and thereby saving the Swedish automaker. Since then, the supercar company headed by Victor Muller has reorganized things, keeping Saab and Spyker separate, while setting the whole thing up under the umbrella of a new company, Swedish Automobile.
But things haven't gone all that well for any of them, with Saab leading the way in the midst of bankruptcy action. Now Swedish Automobile is prepared to break off the Spyker side of the business and sell it to North Street Capital.
Spyker is best known for exotic supercars that sell for more than $200,000, including the acclaimed C8 Aileron. But it has been losing money and sold only 36 cars in 2009, the latest year available.
Russian-backed British coachbuilder CPP has also made a bid for Spyker and got as far as signing a memorandum of understanding with the company earlier this year. The MOU has since expired, but CPP said in a press release today that it is "still keen to progress our proposed acquisition" and won't count itself out until the sale to North Street Capital is completed.
What a sale to either company might mean for Spyker is unclear. It could be chopped up and sold for parts, or like Chrysler under Cerberus management, continued as an ordinary business. It seems likely that it could provide a quick shot of much-needed cash for Swedish Automobile and its remaining automotive operation, Saab. That would be good for Saab and perhaps the market as a whole.
Saab recently won a decision by a Swedish court for short-term protection from creditors, buying it time to finalize funding from a pair of Chinese investors.
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