Defence firm Saab returns to profitability
Published: 14 Feb 10 10:12 CET | Print version
Updated: 14 Feb 10 11:37 CET
Online: http://www.thelocal.se/24976/20100214/
Loss-making Saab Automobile in Sweden, solely owned by General Motors, is best known for its mid-range cars, and has been up for sale. The prospective buyer is Spyker Cars in Holland, producer of tailored luxury cars.
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The company posted a pretax profit of 461 million kronor ($65 million) in the final quarter of last year, with annual sales of 23 billion kronor, it announced at the weekend. Saab posted a 1 billion kronor loss for the equivalent period in 2008.
The actual quarterly profit was less than expected by markets, and saw the shares dip at the weekend by 13.5 percent. Even so, the company said it would sharply increase dividends to shareholders.
Saab is best known in the financial world for military products rather than cars. The biggest single shareholder is BAE Systems in Britain, global supplier of military products. Another major shareholder is Investor owned by Sweden’s influential Wallenberg family.
Saab was not the only Swedish company posting profits at the weekend. The mining and mineral company Boliden announced profits of 1.1 billion kronor in the final quarter of last year, on annual sales of 8.3 billion during the year. The company proposed a 300 percent dividend increase, from one krona to three per share.
Despite the deep recession, the Swedish Central Bank (Riksbanken) on Friday posted profits of 5.8 billion kronor in 2009 that it said would be dispatched to the government. This was probably welcome news. In addition to offering a guaranteed loan of 5.5 billion kronor to Saab Automobile, the government was expected to shortly hand over around 1 billion kronor to ailing Scandinavian Airlines Systems (SAS) in which it owns 21.4 percent of shares. A few months ago the Government granted a similar sum to SAS.
The airline is jointly owned by the governments of Sweden, Denmark and Norway, along with private interests.
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This will keep lots of high quality jobs in Sweden.
I suggest you attend an english language course and learn english.
Defence is the correct spelling.
No, it should not - defence with a 'c' is grammatically correct. Something you clearly do not understand.
Mrwe importantly the Saab aviation business return to profitability is great news.
Let's hope the same will eventually happen with the separate Saab car concern - now that they are free of American mis-management.
I regret that your writer Roger Choate doesn't bother to keep abreast of the news or read your paper.
Saab Automobiles is maybe technically still owned by GM .. but Spyker is the new owner .
Yeah this is not America either so the spelling "Defence" will work.
Good point! Too many people on thsi blog are not aware of the full picture.