The procurement process in Peru has been ongoing for a long time and has moved in different directions, both to the advantage and disadvantage of Sweden's Saab in competition with the American Lockheed Martin. However, on Wednesday, the Reuters news agency reported that Peru has now made a first installment payment for American fighter jets equivalent to 4.3 billion kronor.
This comes at a time when it has emerged that the country's defense and foreign ministers have both resigned in protest at how the country's president has handled the affair.
I can actually only go by what the media write here, and if it is the case that Peru has now moved forward with the F-16, we must respect that, of course, but we still think that we had the absolute best offer, Micael Johansson comments.
Solve the situation
According to Micael Johansson, Saab's team is working on site in Peru to sort out the situation.
We are, of course, trying to find out the facts as best we can, but I actually have nothing more to give right now.
Saab signed a deal to deliver 17 Gripen aircraft to Colombia in November last year. A deal with Peru is said to include 24 fighter jets with an order value of over SEK 30 billion.
In Saab's interim report for the first quarter, Saab's CEO states that "growth was strong for medium-sized orders, while fewer large orders were received during the quarter."
Rapid growth
What would such an order mean from a larger perspective, beyond the order value itself?
Every Gripen deal is of course important, there is no doubt about that. But it is not that this deal is crucial in any way for our strength in the area or for our "ramping up" in terms of production of Gripen aircraft. We are going to deliver to Sweden, Brazil, Hungary and Thailand right now.
At the same time, the company is said to be close to a deal with the military alliance NATO, Dagens Industri reports, citing the French La Lettre. This concerns the Globaleye reconnaissance aircraft.
The defense group Saab has experienced extreme growth since the outbreak of the war in Ukraine, and among other things, its share price has risen almost 300 percent in the last three years. For the latest quarter, it now reports an order intake of SEK 18.2 billion and an operating profit of SEK 1.9 billion.
