Geely bids for Saab

Geely Automobile Holdings Ltd. submitted a bid to acquire General Motors Corp.’s Saab unit in May. Geely’s bid for Saab came weeks after it submitted a separate bid for Ford Motor Co.’s Volvo unit. There is a possibility that Saab’s bid was designed to pressure Ford to respond to Geely’s bid for Volvo or to raise Geely’s chances of obtaining a foreign carmaker in case the Volvo effort falls through, industry insiders said. Geely has said it is interested in using international acquisitions to gain access to technologies and sales networks, and to circumvent trade barriers it might otherwise face as a Chinese automaker. (May 7, 2009)