“The situation is rather complicated,” Victor Muller, the Dutch entrepreneur who bought Saab from General Motors in 2010, said in a telephone interview. “We’ve seen the Chinese investors making U-turns in the last few days. That is very concerning because just last week they had confirmed their interest.”
Mr. Muller’s admission came after Swedish Automobile, the holding company he set up to group Saab and his Spyker sports-car business, said it had learned that Guy Lofalk, the court-appointed administrator, “will apply for termination of the voluntary reorganization of Saab” and two subsidiaries.
Saab’s main factory, in Trollhattan, Sweden, last turned out a car more than six months ago after unpaid suppliers had stopped extending credit to the automaker, leaving Mr. Muller to fight an increasingly desperate battle to restart production before the company is declared bankrupt.
Saab won court protection from creditors last month to reorganize, and Mr. Lofalk was charged with helping it to come up with a convincing business plan, even as the company held out for €245 million, or $335 million, in promised investments from two Chinese companies, Zhejiang Youngman Lotus Automobile and Pang Da Automobile Trade.
“We definitely will not accept” Mr. Lofalk’s bid to end the reorganization, Mr. Muller said, adding that he would seek to have a new administrator appointed.
Mr. Lofalk “is completely focused on an ownership change,” Mr. Muller said. “He wants to force Swedish Automobile to sell Saab.”
He said he did not want to “speculate” as to why Mr. Lofalk might seek such a change.
There has been growing uncertainty as to whether the Chinese investments would be forthcoming, with Reuters last week citing Pang Da’s chairman, Pang Qinghua, as saying the investment plan was no longer valid because of the reorganization. The companies later said Mr. Pang’s statement had been the result of “a misunderstanding.”
Mr. Muller said he was confident that Saab would present its reorganization plan to the court as scheduled on Oct. 31.
“No way it’s over,” Mr. Muller said. “It’s a process that we’ll fight in court.”
Swedish Automobile had said earlier Thursday that it had obtained funding from North Street Capital, an American private-equity firm, saying it needed funds immediately to continue the reorganization. Under that deal, North Street was to lend Saab $60 million and buy 2.39 million new shares in Swedish Automobile at $4.19 per share.
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