GM Seals Saab Deal, Advances Pledge of Loan Payback

General Motors Co. has moved closer to fulfilling CEO Ed Whitacre’s pledge to pay back government loans by June by reaching a $500 million deal to sell its Saab division to Spyker Cars NV, Bloomberg reported.

Saab may become the first brand GM sells since emerging from a U.S.-backed bankruptcy on July 10. Arrangements to sell its Opel and Saturn units fell through, as did earlier negotiations over the Swedish brand. A definitive agreement with Sichuan Tengzhong Heavy Industrial Machinery Co. to buy Hummer is pending regulatory approval.

“It’s a big accomplishment for them to be able to sell the brand,” Rebecca Lindland, director of automotive research at IHS Global Insight in Lexington, Mass., told Bloomberg. “It’s symbolic from a standpoint of getting something accomplished, because the Saturn sale fell through, Koenigsegg walked away from Saab and they had to wind down Pontiac.”

Whitacre, 68, had said since mid-December that GM was winding down Saab after earlier talks with Spyker, and before that Koenigsegg Group AB, ended. Now the CEO known for building AT&T Inc. with acquisitions, has sold the Swedish car brand for more than $400 million in cash and preferred stock, aiding his pledge to repay U.S. and Canadian taxpayers by June.