This just in today from Spyker Cars.

SPYKER SECURES FURTHER FINANCING OF SAAB DEAL

ZEEWOLDE, The Netherlands (8 February, 2010) – Spyker Cars N.V. announces today that Spyker has entered into a USD 25 million convertible loan agreement with an investment company owned by Heerema Holding Company Inc.

The USD 25 million loan has a 2 year term, an interest of Euribor + 10% and is convertible into shares at EUR 4 each. This loan secures the funding necessary to close the Saab transaction as the first USD 25 million has already been paid to GM on January 26, 2010. The convertible loan is conditional on SAAB receiving the EIB loan. On July 15 of this year a final payment of USD 24 million is due to GM. Spyker is confident that it will secure the funding for this second installment.

The European Commission approved the Swedish state guarantee for Saab. With respect to the approval of the Swedish state guarantee, competition commissioner Neelie Kroes said: “The state guarantee will contribute to the implementation of Saab’s business plan without giving rise to any undue distortions of competition”.

Victor Muller, Spyker’s CEO said: “We are delighted that Heerema has decided to become an investor in our company. I had the privilege to work for Pieter Heerema from 1984 through 1991, initially as his counsel, later as Director of Corporate Affairs, and we have come to know each other very well as a result. It is the intention to nominate a representative of Heerema as a member of the Supervisory Board”.

“The positive decision of the European Commission to approve the Swedish state guarantee is another major step towards closing of the Saab acquisition. We are grateful to the Commission of their willingness to work so hard on this decision within the limited time available.”

Pieter Heerema added: “Although providing convertible loans such as this one is not in the ordinary course of our business, the positive developments of the past few months involving the SAAB brand and its sympathetic connotation, together with the worldwide support of loyal customers, dealers, employees, suppliers and other stakeholders represents a unique value. This value represents much more than money alone. We are confident that when the company’s management gets the opportunity to implement the business plan we will see a good financial return on our investment as well”.

-Ends-

This is the final week until the Spyker Saab deal closes next Monday the 15th of February.

There are two remaining hurdles this week.

The first objective is for the EIB to officially grant the loan now that all conditions have been met.

The second objective is for the Spyker shareholders to approve the sale of Saab and the respective name change.

Here’s hoping these objectives are met and it’s another smooth week ahead leading up to the closing date.

As the Swedish Government and the Swedish National Debt office have approved the EIB loan, yet another critical milestone has been approved.

Today, the EU Commission have also approved the EIB loan. This now leaves the final step in this long awaited process up to the EIB themselves to approve the loan this week.

Here’s the official press release by the EU Commission as well as Sweden’s Dagens Industri,

State aid: Commission approves Swedish State guarantee for Saab

The European Commission has authorised, under EU state aid rules, plans notified by Sweden to provide a guarantee that would enable Saab Automobile AB to access a loan from the European Investment Bank (EIB). The Commission found that 82.8% of the guarantee to be provided by Sweden was in line with its Temporary Framework for state aid measures, which gives Member States additional scope to facilitate access to financing in the present economic and financial crisis (see IP/08/1993 ). In particular, Saab will pay an adequate remuneration for the guarantee and provide sufficient securities in case the guarantee would be drawn. It is therefore compatible with Article 107(3)(b) of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU), which permits aid to remedy a serious disturbance in the economy of a Member State. The remaining 17.2% will be provided on market conditions and therefore does not constitute state aid.

Competition Commissioner Neelie Kroes said: “The state guarantee will contribute to the implementation of Saab’s business plan without giving rise to any undue distortions of competition.”

The loan to be granted by the EIB would co-finance Saab’s business plan in the light of its sale by current owner General Motors to Dutch carmaker Spyker Cars N.V. According to the business plan, Saab intends to use the EIB loan of €400 million for an investment project worth €1 billion related to inter alia fuel efficiency and car safety.

Saab would pay a premium for the guarantee and provide the Swedish Government with high-quality collateral covering the full guaranteed amount. This collateral could be called upon by the Swedish state if it had to pay out any money under the guarantee. The level of the premiums paid during the lifetime of the loan would be in line with the provisions of the Commission’s Temporary Framework. For a part of the guarantee, the Commission found that, in the current market situation and taking into account the other conditions of the transaction, a premium of 12.48 % per annum constitutes the market price for the risk involved in issuing such a guarantee. The Commission therefore concluded that this part of the guarantee did not involve state aid.

The non-confidential version of the decision will be made available under the case number N 541/2009 in the State Aid Register on the DG Competition website. New publications of state aid decisions on the internet and in the Official Journal are listed in the State Aid Weekly e-News .

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Spyker Cars will be holding an meeting of their shareholders on Friday, the 12th of February. Below is the brief outline of that meeting’s agenda as referenced on their website.

AGENDA

For the extraordinary general meeting of shareholders of Spyker Cars N.V., established at Zeewolde, the Netherlands (the “Company”), to be held Friday 12 February 2010 at the Company’s office, Edisonweg 2, 3899 AZ Zeewolde, The Netherlands, starting 10:00 a.m.

1. Opening
2. Approval by the general meeting of shareholders of the Company of the purchase of Saab
(decision)
3. Amendment of the articles of association of the Company and power of attorney to have the
deed executed (decision)
4. Questions
5. Closing

Point 3 is put on the agenda by proposal of the holder of the priority share. Point 3 is subject to the approval by the general meeting of shareholders of the Company of the purchase of Saab.

2. APPROVAL BY SHAREHOLDERS OF THE PURCHASE OF SAAB

On 26 January 2010, the Company and General Motors Company reached an agreement on the transfer of ownership of Saab Automobile AB of Trolhättan, Sweden. By virtue of Article 2:107a, part 1 of the Dutch Civil Code (Nederlands Burgerlijk Wetboek), the acquisition of Saab and payment of the purchase price of USD 74 million by the Company requires the approval of the general meeting of shareholders. The details of the transaction will be provided in a separate shareholder circular, which will be published on the website www.spykercars.com as soon as possible.

3. PROPOSED AMENDMENTS OF THE ARTICLES OF ASSOCIATION OF SPYKER CARS N.V.

In order to change the name of the Company, increase the Company’s authorized share capital and amend the rights attributed to the priority, an amendment of the articles of association of the Company is necessary. The proposed amendments are attached to this agenda. The proposal includes the authorization of each managing director of the Company and each (deputy) civil law notary and notarial assistant of Allen & Overy LLP, each of them severally, to apply to the Dutch Ministry of Justice for the Statement of No Objections and to have the Deed of Amendment of the Articles of Association executed.

PROPOSAL for the AMENDMENT OF THE ARTICLES OF ASSOCIATION of SPYKER CARS N.V.

PROPOSED FOR THE EXTRA-ORDINARY GENERAL MEETING OF SHAREHOLDERS OF 12 FEBRUARY 2010

PROPOSED AMENDMENTS:
Article 2. Name and registered office.

1. The company bears the name: SAAB SPYKER AUTOMOBILES N.V.

Article 4. Authorised capital.
1. The authorised capital of the company is three million euro (EUR 3,000,000).
2. This sum is divided into seventy-five million (75,000,000) shares of four eurocents (EUR 0.04) each, being fifty-six million two hundred and forty-nine thousand nine hundred and ninety-nine (56,249,999) ordinary shares, eighteen million seven hundred and fifty thousand (18,750,000) shares class A and one (1) priority share.

Article 42. Rights priority.
If, and as long the voting rights attached to the priority share cannot be exercised, the rights attributed to the priority in these articles of association, will be exercised by the supervisory board.

There are 10 more days until the Saab Spyker deal closes, and if you have noticed this week, I’ve been intentionally keeping the pace slower reflecting the sensitivity of the deal.

We’ve all been through quite a year following the ongoing Saab saga and if you’re like me, you’ve had it with negative news (which the Swedish Press are up to again), and just want the deal to close. I’m also willing to guess that you also want positive news both leading up to and immediately following the deal to be inspiring, confident, honest and clear about the future of Saab.

These have been unprecedented times for Saab and I think it’s a good time to only focus on the positive. As I said before, between now and the time that the deal closes, I’m holding back from providing frequent content as there will be a good time for that soon. However, I will be providing more material between now and then, but it will be very selective and limited.

Moving forward, there will be good things to come for Saab that are just around the corner and likewise here at Saab History as I have been working around the clock to prepare some new and exciting features that I am sure you will enjoy.

Stay tuned and please be patient until this deal closes.

Saab History has recently been informed by multiple Saab dealerships in the United States tonight that they now have the ability to order the Saab 9-3x!

This is great news for the dealers, and for consumers. While the details are there and one I spoke to tonight, is ordering a few tonight, one in white, another in Nocturne blue, he said that the pricing is not yet available.

The dealers did indicate that if a customer wants to order one, they can take their order at this time. However if an an order is placed prior to closing of the Saab Spyker deal ( February 15th), that order will be submitted at the time of closing.

“I really want this car in Nocturne Blue, Navigation with a manual transmission and XWD with the 5-spoke double 17×7 wheels , as this would be a welcomed change from the ‘97 9000 with a quarter of a million miles on it”

As demand is expected to grow significantly following this news for 9-3x availability, Saab dealers encourage you to visit your local dealer to do the best thing you can do and get in line and place an order today!

Saab History frequenter, Steve G has provided us a great link to some incredible video footage taken at the recent “SAVE SAAB” event in New York City to an appropriate song by a familiar artist.

I want to thank the folks that made it to this event, but I also want to give a huge thumbs up for this video footage! I know that filming in NYC is a huge challenge, and the photographs of the Saabs in Times Square was thrilling, but now video footage, wow!

Great job to everyone that attended and thanks for documenting this event for Saab’s continuous history in the making!

Boston Power’s CEO, Christina Lampe-Onnerud was recently interviewed by Earth2Tech where she indicated that the electric vehicle partnership with Saab Automobile is “full steam ahead”.

The partnership with Boston Power was officially announced on December 11th, although we first heard about the early developments of the EV project this past June with a Swedish Company called Electro Engine.

The two companies as indicated, plan on initially developing 100 true electric Saab vehicles based on existing 9-3 platforms using specialized battery products in both a convertible and sedan model variant.

While it’s great to hear that the program continues, uninterrupted, it’s also quite exciting how thrilled she is with Spyker Cars coming in to buy Saab.

Here’s the story below:

The shaky status of Saab — the loss-making auto brand that General Motors threatened to shut down late last year before finally reaching a deal with specialty car maker Spyker — cast uncertainty around the first publicly announced demonstration of battery maker Boston-Power’s devices in plug-in vehicles. The dust has now started to settle, and Boston-Power CEO Christina Lampe-Onnerud tells us the project is going “full steam ahead.”

Spyker, which agreed to pay GM at least $74 million in cash for the brand, released plans today to operate Saab as,”an independent performance-oriented niche car company with an industry-leading environmental strategy,” and announced the goal of making it profitable by 2012. Lampe-Onnerud told us in an interview yesterday that the Massachusetts-based startup now has “people deployed on the ground” in Sweden (she declined to specify how many), and Saab is still engaged in the project.

Heading into the Swedish EV project, Lampe-Onnerud said, “We knew there was some business risk.” But the potential gains and opportunity to learn about deploying its batteries — currently used as premium upgrade batteries for Hewlett-Packard laptops — in electric vehicles and figuring out “the ideal handshake” between the battery and the drive train, made the collaboration a “no brainer” for Boston-Power. She said the startup is “thrilled with Spyker coming in.”

Other partners in the EV coalition, which is receiving funding from the Swedish government, include electric powertrain developer Electroengine, project incubator and manager Innovatum Technology Park, and Swedish power industry trade group Power Circle. According to the coalition’s December 2009 announcement, the group has built a small number of demo models and plans to produce more than 100 vehicles in 2010.

According to Lampe-Onnerud, Boston-Power has other auto projects in the works. While the company is “trying to be very humble with our customers,” and let them make any announcements about planned plug-in vehicles and battery suppliers under consideration, Lampe-Onnerud said Boston-Power is involved with automakers that are testing vehicles at various scales and stages — from tens to thousands of cars per month. “This is not a real market, it’s an emerging market,” she said. “So every project is one-off.”
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News Release
SPYKER PROVIDES FURTHER DETAILS ON SAAB ACQUISITION

ZEEWOLDE, The Netherlands (1 February, 2010) – In advance of the General Meeting of Spyker shareholders, to be held on 12 February 2010, and which was convened on 28 January 2010, Spyker Cars N.V. (“Spyker”) provides further strategic and financial details regarding its acquisition of Saab Automobile AB (”Saab”).
ACQUISITION RATIONALE AND SAAB BUSINESS PLAN

Spyker believes that through the purchase of Saab it has a rare opportunity to acquire and rebuild a global car brand which will be repositioned towards an independent performance-oriented niche car company with an industry-leading environmental strategy. Saab?s brand DNA is unique and rooted in its aeronautical heritage, innovative and independent thinking and its Swedish origins. Spyker fully supports Saab?s Business Plan which will be implemented by Saab management. The Business Plan, drawn up by Saab management over the past ten months, was analysed by Spyker in assistance with Booz & Co and KPMG Transaction Services, advisors to Spyker. The Business Plan has also been analysed and supported by several advisors to the Swedish Government and the EIB.
At the General Meeting, Spyker Cars N.V. intends to adopt a resolution to change its name to Saab Spyker Automobiles NV (“Saab Spyker”). This entity will operate Spyker and Saab as two separate operating companies, each focused on its distinct target markets with their respective vehicle lines. As previously stated, Saab Spyker is committed to execute the Saab Business Plan. It is the intention to enhance it in several areas. The highlights of Saab?s strategy will be:

*Saab will be a stand-alone niche manufacturer with three to four model lines: 9-3 (sedan, hatchback, sports estate, X and convertible) and 9-5 (sedan, sports estate and X) and the 9-4X for both the US and European markets. In addition, Saab will investigate the potential of adding a fourth smaller car line (“9-1”) in due course provided that the positive development of the smaller car segment continues. However, this model is currently not envisaged in the Business Plan so if the outcome of the investigation is positive, additional financing to develop this model could be required.

* Saab’s product portfolio will be renewed completely, beginning with the launch of the new 9-5 early this summer, the new 9-4X in early 2011 and the all new Saab’s 9-3 in 2012.

* Saab will continue to be repositioned against other brands such as Audi (A4/A6) and BMW (3/5 series) as a premium brand, leveraging its strong and unique brand heritage.

* Saab’s Technical Development Center in Trollhättan has full capability in developing complete vehicles and will continue to do so. In areas such as safety, environment, driving characteristics, practicality, turbo technologies and several other innovations, the Saab brand is among the best in the industry.

* With Trollhättan as one of the most efficient mid-size car plants in Europe, production and sales volumes are aimed to be rebuilt to recent pre-crisis levels of about 100,000 to 125,000 vehicles including the 9-4X built in Mexico.

* The current dealer network will be re-energized with a new sales and distribution approach in certain markets, which will be implemented during 2010.

* The economies of scale of the on-going collaboration with GM after Closing the acquisition (February 2010) will continue to be leveraged in sourcing via ancillary agreements, with independent sourcing gradually increasing to reduce GM dependency and obtain improved access to other suppliers and the co-development of unique innovations.

Saab Spyker believes that its two brands, both deeply rooted in aeronautical and automotive history, will benefit from sharing certain assets and technology services. Examples include but are not limited to:

* Saab’s extensive global network of 1,100 dealers.

* The extensive engineering know how and innovative technologies available at Saab.

* Sharing of activities in marketing & sales: i.e. merchandising, promotion & sponsorship activities, etc.

In the future, the two brands will be able to share certain parts and components and expect to obtain access to supplier and partner resources not available to Spyker or Saab individually today.

FUNDING OF SAAB

The Saab Business Plan requires approximately $1 billion in peak funding for Saab in advance of the return to profitability, forecast to occur by 2012. The funding is provided in part by GM, through $326 million Redeemable Preference Shares (“RPSs”), and in part through other contributions, which concern various substantial contributions to the funding of Saab?s Business Plan on favorable terms for supplies by GM to Saab and deferred payments from Saab to GM. The remaining amount, apart from cash at bank, is to be provided by a EUR 400 million loan from the European Investment Bank for certain R&D projects at Saab. Securing this EIB loan is a condition precedent to closing of the Saab acquisition (“Closing”).
With this financing in place, the business plan does not envisage any future funding being required, neither from Spyker or elsewhere, for Saab to return to profitability. The business plan targets car production and sales at or below historical levels of 100,000 to 125,000.
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Photo Credit: Saab Automobile AB

The final 2009 MY Saab 9-5 SportCombi, originally planned to end final production in March, ended today at the Saab factory in Trollhättan.

This now concludes all Saab 9-5 production models for the 2009 model year, as the sedan ended this past July.

It was kind of strange, that Saab History heard about this through an rss feed through Swedish publication, Teknikens World instead of directly from Saab Automobile themselves. I would check out the link here for more photos of the car however, it’s interesting.

Update: Saab Automobile Provides Press Release:

Out with the Old, In with the New: Final Current Generation Saab 9-5 Produced

* Last first generation Saab 9-5 rolls off Trollhättan production line
* Almost 500,000 produced since 1997
* Next generation 9-5 being prepared for launch this year

The last current generation Saab 9-5 to be produced, a silver Griffin edition SportCombi, rolled off the assembly line yesterday (1 February) at Saab’s Trollhättan plant in Sweden.

Almost half a million 9-5s have been produced since its launch in 1997 – 252,236 sedans and 231,357 SportCombis. This popular model, soon to be replaced by an all-new generation, introduced a number of industry innovations: active front head restraints (SAHR), ventilated seats, Night Panel instrument dimming, a charcoal interior air filter and Saab BioPower flex-fuel turbo technology.

The last Saab 9-5 is bound for the Saab Museum in Trollhättan, where it will join an illustrious line-up of all Saab’s key models. As it left the assembly line, a new chapter in Saab product history was beginning – the first all-new 9-5 sedans are already being produced at the world class Trollhättan facility ahead of launch later this year.

Contact:
Saab Automobile Press Office
Tel: +46 (0)520 279797

The last 9-5: an generation of a rolling band of today

Today at 12.30 last rolled Saab 9-5 from the first generation of the assembly line in Trollhättan. The art world were on hand to immortalize the moment.

World art photographer Glenn Lindberg is currently in Trollhättan, specifically in the Saab factory. Where has he for a little while ago, witnessed the completion of the last Saab 9-5 from the first generation, then the one you see on the pictures above and below.

16 June 1997 rolled off the first 9-5: an of the band. A SportCombi in red metallic with 150-horsepower light-pressure turbo under the hood and manual transmission. Today the car at the Saab museum in Trollhättan, Saab 9-5, which also number 483 593 will do, that is the car that rolled off the tape at 12.30 today, 1 February 2010.

This last copy of the outgoing 9-5 SportCombi is one of the color Snow Silver with a 2.3t BioPower engine of 210 horsepower under the hood. In terms of the equipment contains the most you can think of in a car, that is, leather upholstery, navigator, and much more – just like a Griffin Vector Sport Edition will have.

Saab 9-5 from the first generation produced in just over 12.5 years and during this period, we therefore had time to build 483 593 copies. It is slightly less than what its predecessor managed by Saab 9000, informs Peter Bäckström, head of the Saab museum, us. 9000 was produced in just over 503 000 copies, but it also made it over a slightly longer period, between 1984 and 1998.

We say thanks and farewell to the first generation Saab 9-5, which has done a good job in just over twelve years and welcome the new Saab 9-5 with open arms. And so we hope that the new 9-5, although new it would turn out to be an exceptionally good car, not a long-running series of the same rank as its predecessor.