Word: scania
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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There's nothing like teaming up with a $100 billion company to improve one's prospects. Or so Swedish automaker Saab-Scania AB hopes. Saab last week agreed to sell General Motors a 50% interest in its car-making operations, which had 1988 sales of $2.6 billion, for some $600 million, plus a promise that GM will invest another $100 million. Saab, which also makes trucks and aircraft, will spin the auto holdings into a subsidiary to carry out the deal...
...latecomer to the Saab wooing game, which began when Ford started courting the company earlier this year. After the collapse of those negotiations, auto-industry analysts expected Italy's Fiat to be the winning suitor. For Saab-Scania, which lost $123 million on its car-making operations in the first half of 1989, the advantage of the deal was access to GM's deep pockets. GM will gain badly needed production capacity at Saab's five plants in Europe, plus a stronger position in the U.S. and European luxury-car markets...
With its turbocharged engine and curvilinear profile, the Swedish-built Saab 900 was a chariot of choice for arrivistes of the mid-1980s. But now Saab- Scania's auto division is hitting the skids, largely because of intensified competition and a relatively weak dollar that has pushed the cost of Saab's newest 9000 turbo model to a base price of $30,795. The parent company confirmed rumors last week that it is discussing a possible linkup with Ford, which could give the Swedish company's finances a boost. The U.S. automaker is believed to be particularly interested in ventures...
...Wallenberg bankers who have been synonymous with Swedish business for more than a century, Marcus and his brother Jacob (who died two years ago) rebuilt Sweden's industrial strength after the Kreuger crash in 1932. Eventually taking control of such multinational giants as Electrolux, L.M. Ericsson and Saab-Scania, Wallenberg also helped to establish the Scandinavian Airlines System in 1946 and controlled companies that employed one of every eight working Swedes. A national tennis champion as a young man, he shunned ostentation and once said of his estimable family: "We're nothing special. We come from simple, ordinary...
...Metal-Workers Union, the second largest in Sweden, has been involved in many experiments in "industrial democracy" on the shop-floor during the past decade. These include the famous experiments with both Saab-Scania and Volvo which aimed to abolish the assembly line in favor of group assembly in what have come to be known as "autonomous groups." However, Ahlstrom says that in almost all these experiments, "the companies kept control. I don't know of a single experiment that was initiated by the companies that really changed the work organization in such a way that the workers experienced...