It is quite possible that
It is quite possible that Saab was more profitable than it seemed. There is reason to believe that GM Europe losses were logged against Saab, so that even in years it was profitable it appeared as if it wasn't.
GM bought Saab because it was miffed that Ford bought Jaguar in late eighties and it missed out. So GM accquired Saab so it could play "me too" at buying a European premium car manufacturer. I don't think it understood what it was buying and in all the years it owned Saab, it never understood what Saab customers actually wanted. That's not to say that GM didn't benefit from owning Saab. GM benefited from Saab's extensive design and technology and many of it's cars would not be what they are today without it. But did Saab benefit from being owned by GM? Probably not much.
It is unfortunate that Saab today has to license much of it's own intellectual property back from GM to produce cars, at least until Saab's next generation platform is made. Hopefully the Phoenix platform makes it into production and Saab can bid (a less than fond) farewell to GM.