By Christiaan Hetzner and David Bailey
GENEVA (Reuters) - The woes of General Motors-owned
Volvo Cars Chief Executive Stephen Odell said on Tuesday it was not clear to what extent Volvo would be affected by the troubles at Saab, which last month received temporary protection from creditors as it sought to restructure its business.
"My only hope is that whatever happens is done in an orderly fashion, so that it enables other people that might be affected to plan around it because we do share a supply base principally in Sweden," Odell told Reuters in an interview.
"With Tier 2 and Tier 3 level suppliers, I don't know what the components are that will be the issue and I probably won't know until I'm in the problem."
Ford said late last year it would consider all options for Volvo, the sole remaining unit of its former premier auto group, and most observers expect the U.S. vehicles maker to sell the brand if it can find a buyer.
Odell said Volvo was capable of surviving as a stand-alone business and hit out at reports a deal to sell the brand, possibly to Chinese auto manufacturers, was in the offing.
"I'm often asked if I'm learning Chinese. In the end I am here to run a business and minimize the distraction of those issues," Odell said.
"Do people talk to people? Everybody talks to everybody in this business and surprisingly a lot of what's written in the press is not true," he added, declining to comment on a media report that China's Geely was interested.
Odell also said he had asked Sweden to initiate a scrapping incentive scheme along the lines of one that has recently boosted demand in neighboring Germany.
"Scandinavian markets have got the oldest car park in Europe, so it would have the most effect," he said,
Car registrations in Sweden plunged by 45 percent in December as well as 34 percent in January and February -- painful for Volvo due to its 20 percent share in what is still its second biggest market after the United States.
Stripping out the "dramatic distortion" from the German scrappage incentive that has lifted demand sharply, Odell estimated underlying European demand had bottomed out at an annual run rate of about 13.4 million vehicles.
"The U.S. we planned at 12 (million) and while I haven't seen the February figures it's probably below 11 so it's not good," Odell said.
"House prices have not hit bottom either and frankly until that happens it's pretty difficult to see a turnaround so the U.S. is definitely worse than we forecast and Europe if anything is a little better."
(Editing by David Cowell)
