The Geely GE at Shangai. Geely are now eyeing up a Saab bid
It’s being reported that Chinese car maker Geely is planning to make a bid for Saab after the Koenigsegg deal fell through.
Chinese car maker Geely is the front-runner to take Volvo off Ford’s hands – and about time too. No doubt there is going to be the ususal angst from Ford about intellectual rights (much the same as GM had with BAIC’s involvement with the failed Koenigsegg bid for Saab) but, short of a catastrophe, the Ford to Geely deal looks set to be concluded.
But now it’s being reported that Geely is eyeing up Saab. Which isn’t news as Geely were in the frame to buy Saab until GM fell for the Koenigsegg bid. In fact, Geely seems to be there or thereabouts with any fire sale of automotive marks in the last year. But there seems to be a renewed interest, and the fact the Geely have publicly stated their desire to grow through acquisition as well as through the rapidly burgeoning domestic market in China makes a bid more likely.
But it also seems likely that Geely will run in to the same obstacles that did for the Koenigsegg bid. GM are going to be very twitchy about their intellectual rights and proprietary platforms heading East, but frankly there may not be much choice. And does it matter that much?
China is rapidly catching up with western car makes and it won’t be long before they take the lead. Sure, there’s a lot of public amusement in the West (and anger from the car makers themselves) over the Chinese clones (Geely are responsible for a Rolls Royce clone and we reported earlier today about BYD’s Lexus RX clone) but these clones are for domestic consumption only and only serve to mask the huge technological strides the Chines are making.
This is starting to turn in to a huge Chinese take-away.
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