|
Denmark | According to Swedish newspaper Dagens Industri, investigations by Swedish intelligence led to the cancellation of the SAAB deal back in December.
Intelligence had found that main share holder of, and chairman for, Dutch Spyker, Russian Vladimir Antonov through his company The Antonov Group, had scaring and close relations to the Russian mafia. It seemed that Antonov group serves as a money laundering machine for the mafia.
These findings disturbed the Swedes to a degree were they alerted the FBI who in term went to GM and told them: No deal.
This led to the announcement by GM in December that the deal with Spyker was cancelled.
GM apparently proceeded negotiating with Spyker but demanded that all connections between Spyker and the Russians be removed. This led to the selling of Mr. Antonovs shares to managing director of Spyker Cars, Mr Victor Muller. Also Mr. Antonov and 2 other Russians in the board of directors resigned their positions with Spyker thus paving the road for the final sale of SAAB to Spyker Cars, which sale was recently officially announced.
There have been no mentions of who is financing Mr. Victor Muller´s buyout of the shares.
Well, I certainly understand the concern of the Sweedes. First Volvo with all its technology and industry firsts is sold off to the Chinese, and then the Russian mafia about to get SAAB. Action to prevent this was, in my opinion, appropriate.
Jorn | |
|
GM and SAAB - once more.
