Spyker‘s bankruptcy comes after years of financial struggles, which was exacerbated after it bought flagging Saab from General Motors in 2010 for $1.5 billion.
Sports car maker Spyker on Thursday declared bankruptcy, with the small Dutch company that once competed in Formula 1 saying it could not stay afloat after losing a critical legal battle.
A Dutch district court ended a temporary moratorium of payments granted Dec. 2. The court placed Spyker and its wholly owned subsidiaries Spyker Automobielen and Spyker Events & Branding into receivership.
The administrator appointed to run the company when it applied for creditor protection will now guide it through bankruptcy proceedings, the company said in a statement. “As far as I am concerned this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning,” Muller said in the statement, quoting former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill’s 1942 speech after the country won a key WWII battle against Germany
Spyker’s bankruptcy comes after years of financial struggles, which was exacerbated after it bought flagging Saab from General Motors in 2010 for $1.5 billion. But two years later Saab filed for bankruptcy when Spyker’s last-ditch bid to raise funds in China was nixed by GM over technology transfer issues.
Spyker then sued GM for $3 billion in damages before a U.S. court, claiming GM deliberately caused Saab to go bankrupt. US courts ruled in GM’s favor including on appeal.
image credit CC 2.0 “Winning Automotive Photography“
