7:38 pm, July 1, 2011
SAAB has announced it’s secured a 25m euro loan for short-term funding and to pay its workers.
The marque’s owners Swedish Automobile – SWAN – said in a statement: ‘A EUR 25m convertible bridge loan agreement with Gemini with a six months maturity. The interest rate of the loan is 10 per cent per annum and the conversion price is EUR 1.38 per share.’
It’s the first bit of good news for Saab dealers this week – the sale of the real estate for 28m euros and the sale of cars to a Chinese buyer at the cost of 13m euros earlier this week means Saab Automobile has secured 66m in additional funding over the past week.
And last week, the firm announced it could not pay its workers due to a shortage of cash.
The new loan will see Saab re-start production over the next two weeks.
Victor Muller, CEO of Swedish Automobile and chairman of Saab Automobile said: ‘I am relieved to report that we made the June salary payments this afternoon from the proceeds of the sale of cars we announced last Monday. We again extend our sincerest apologies to our employees for the hardship the late payment has caused to them.
‘We have clearly gone through a very rough patch in the past few weeks and hopefully we can now reach agreement with our suppliers so as to ensure a resumption of our production in a controlled way. Our mid and long-term funding is secured by the Pang Da /Youngman agreements which are still subject to obtaining certain governmental approvals. Assuming these approvals are obtained, the Gemini bridge loan will be repaid in full.
