OUT OF GAS

Saab Files for Bankrupcy

CEO bought it from GM in 2010.

It’s a sad day for proud Saab owners. Victor Muller, the chief executive of Saab’s parent company, Swedish Automobile, announced that the carmakers were filing for bankruptcy on Monday. “There’s no doubt that this is the blackest day in my career,” Muller said during a press conference at the company’s Swedish headquarters. In February 2010, Muller rescued Saab from General Motors but “did so with overly ambitious sales expectations for the first year, which saw the company short of cashflow,” according to Ian Fletcher, an analyst at HIS Global Insight. Muller had been in talks with a Chinese company about potentially overtaking the Swedish carmaker, but General Motors—which still has licensing agreements with Saab—didn’t agree to the move. GM likely didn’t want the Swedish company competing with it in China, a fast-growing market for the U.S. car giant.