Ecclestone says Saab bid could stall

17/01/2010

F1 boss Bernie Ecclestone has been in the headlines a lot recently and, unusually, it hasn't been due to motor sport or his ownership of the QPR football team.

In a move which seemed to come out of the blue, it came to light earlier this month that Ecclestone was bidding for the Swedish car company Saab. However, according to the man himself, the headlines about this may soon run out of fuel.

In today's Express newspaper, Pitpass' business editor Chris Sylt quotes Ecclestone saying that he "would have doubts" about his bid for Saab being accepted by the car manufacturer's current owner, General Motors. Interestingly, the bid is jointly led by Ecclestone and Luxembourg-based private equity firm Genii Capital which bought into Renault's F1 team last month. Ecclestone told Sylt that the Saab bid did not come about as a result of the Renault purchase and he heard about the opportunity when Genii's chairman Gerard Lopez called him.

Ecclestone confirms that "the Swedish government would like someone like us to take it over," but adds that "GM would like to do a better deal with China which they did before." He is referring to the sale announced in June last year, of GM's Hummer brand to Sichuan Tengzhong Heavy Industrial Machinery, a privately owned Chinese company.

The Hummer deal was reportedly worth up to £154m ($250m) and saved 3,000 jobs. However, Ecclestone says that there is a significant obstacle which could prevent Saab from following Hummer and ending up in Chinese hands. "Apparently the American government don't want that to happen," he says. So despite Ecclestone's doubts that his bid for Saab will get off the grid, the race is still on.