Not looking too good.



Thu Apr 7, 2011 12:54pm EDT

* Saab owes tens of millions of crowns to suppliers

* Production of cars suspended for third day this week

* Saab hopes to restart production early next week

* Spyker has said sees no collapse

(Adds Saab comment)

By Johan Ahlander

TROLLHATTAN, Sweden, April 7 (Reuters) - Swedish carmaker Saab scrambled to resolve a crisis over tens of millions of crowns in unpaid bills on Thursday as a production halt ran into a third day.

Dutch owner Spyker (SPYKR.AS) held talks with parts suppliers whose invoices it has failed to pay while newspaper Dagens Nyheter headlined its coverage: "Desperate hunt for money".

Saab spokeswoman Gunilla Gustavs said the carmaker is working intensively to get supplies moving again.

"We're expecting that we could resume normal production early next week," she said. "A lot of work is going into strengthening the financial position of the company."

Spyker, which bought loss-making Saab from General Motors (GM.N) last year, says the company is not facing collapse but a short-term liquidity crunch.

Spyker chief executive Victor Muller and Saab chief Jan-Ake Jonsson both declined to comment to Reuters on progress to sort out payments when questioned outside the plant.

"I do not know how much it (the amount owed) is in total, but we are talking about tens of millions (of crowns)," Svenake Berglie, chief executive of the FKG suppliers' organisation, told Reuters.

Andreas Ljungberg, Director of Commercial Vehicles at International Automotive Components Group (IAC), which supplies dashboards and other components, said IAC was closely watching cash flow to assess future deliveries.

"Obviously, we have outstanding payments to the degree where we cannot increase our exposure further," he added.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/...73612520110407