Another party besides Spyker has placed a bid on Saab. This is Genii Capital, the same private-equity group which purchased Renault’s Formula 1 team.

They will be making General Motors a cash offer, and, if successful, will use the same business plan Koenigsegg had, before they pulled out of bidding. That plan is to return Saab to profitability by 2012, with 105,000 units per year. However, Ed Whitacre, CEO of General Motors, isn’t confident that the sale of Saab will go through. He claims that no one has come up with the proper money yet. “It’s real easy – show up with the money and you can have it.” However, this may be a statement made to simply increase bid sizes.

It has also been discovered that Bernie Ecclestone, Formula 1’s commercial rights holder, is involved in Genii’s bid for Saab. He’s made billions off of Formula 1, so his business skill may help him purchase Saab and make it profitable.

It is also rumoured that there is a Swedish group preparing a last-minute bid for Saab. The group supposedly includes Hakan Samuelsson, former CEO of the truck company Man. Then there’s Spyker, who has been in the running for some time now and submitted their third bid on time for the January 7th deadline. Victor Muller, CEO of Spyker, said he was “confident that we will put in an acceptable bid.”

Will these one of these bids prove successful? Even Saab itself has lost hope, with the Saab board voting to kill off the company. GM is continuing to accept bids though, so there’s still a chance that Saab will pull through these tough times. We’re hoping that it will. You can help it pull through too. Head over here for more information.

Source: Bloomberg (1, via BusinesWeek) (2), SaabsUnited, Reuters via The New York Times, all previously mentioned sources via Autoblog (1) (2), The Wall Street Journal via Jalopnik