Saab's white knight seeks creative revival

By Wojciech Moskwa

OSLO (Reuters) - Baard Eker, the Norwegian designer behind the unlikely bid for General Motors' Saab unit, wants to rejuvenate the "soul and spirit" of the loss-making Swedish carmaker and lead a creative revival in the auto industry.

Eker controls tiny Swedish supercar maker Koenigsegg and has helped get Norwegian and U.S. financial investors to buy Saab from GM, in what is one the strangest twists yet in the ongoing restructuring of the global auto industry.

"Saab has to refine their quality level, their soul and spirit and we believe that this is something we can help with," Eker told Reuters in a telephone interview.

"The most interesting thing is that GM thinks the same," added Eker, whose company owns 49 percent in Koenigsegg, designs the supercars as well as other luxury items such as speedboats and top-of-the-line video projectors.

Eker would not be drawn on the specifics of negotiations with GM, which could last several more months, but said that private investors had placed their faith and money in his Saab bid at a time when the credit crisis still hobbled liquidity.

"There is not as much capital around these days, but there is also not as many interesting projects, and we have been told that this is a very interesting project to be a part of financially," said Eker, 47.

Koenigsegg's offer, which is backed by the Swedish government, has raised eyebrows because it entails the purchase of a company producing nearly 100,000 cars per year by a firm which annually sells just dozens of its $1 million two-seaters.

GREENER SAAB?

Eker said the global auto industry has lacked creativity in past years and failed to change in line with consumer attitudes on both style and other issues, such as growing awareness of the environment and the harm caused by petrol emissions.

"So far we haven't seen much in terms of environmentally friendly cars from the big (players)," he said. "That is something the smaller companies can more easily attend to because it is much quicker to turn around a smaller company."

Asked if a "greener" Saab could be in the works, Eker said: "Obviously we have some ideas but it's too early to talk about them ... but environmental thinking is a very important thing in our view."

Eker said large amounts of know-how in the auto industry has been effectively outsourced to suppliers, who "sometimes steer the design and development phase too much" resulting in "more and more similarity" between car brands.

"GM is maybe one of the most significant manufacturers which (offers cars that) people feel are a little old and perhaps too late out on the market," said Eker, whose personal wealth was estimated by Norway's Kapital magazine at $70 million in 2008.

He said that production in Sweden and other Scandinavian countries, which have relatively high costs, means that the focus has to be on "high margin products," but he declined to specify which audience he was targeting for Saab.

An architect and industrial designer by training, Eker seeks to craft the vision and direction of Saab and not micro-manage.