evok

The US Treasury is providing the DIP. Instead of cluttering up GM's balance sheet with government debt to restructure, the government will take a position in the company based upon an estimated market cap when the company again goes public with an IPO. The government is actually doing GM a favor by taking a position in the company because they will not have to pay interest on the DIP support. If GM produces as I believe they will, the government will be repaid. In 2-4 years depending on when the market recovers, the GM IPO should do well for the new owners who financed its restructuring. Isn't that the point of Chapter 11 bankruptcy - find success and be rewarded and wipe out the failure or previous owners for making poorinvestment decision. Bare in mind GM will be taking on more government debt from the CAFE loans that GM will apply for as will Ford, Chrysler and anyone else.

doubtful

That is because you and Teh Ricer Civic! do not know the first thing you are talking about. Just read Oldsmoboi's posts, he get it. There are many reasons to be bullish on the New GM.

The UAW will not own stock in GM, F or New Chrysler. Let me repeat, The UAW will not own stock in GM, F or New Chrysler. It has been misreported at times in the press and certainly by many people. A trust fund that runs the healthcare for the UAW established as part of the 2007 contract will have the shares. The UAW will have no say in how the shares are exercised or say in the company.

I am sure you know best. GM Bonds Plummet to Record Lows on ‘Near-Certain’ Bankruptcy GM’s $300 million of 9.4 percent bonds due in 2021 fell 4.3 cents to 4.4 cents on the dollar as of 11:46 a.m. in New York, according to Trace, the bond-price reporting system of the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority. The debt yields 196 percent, Trace data show.

Get your head out of your idolized little world for a second. The government told GM what to do with the unsecured debt holders as early as November of last year and agree to in December – why because they are unsecured lenders. In a traditional Chapter 11 bankruptcy they are one step up from a shareholder in getting anything out the company. GM’s debt has been trading for pennies on the dollar for a long time now and what GM has offered the unsecured lenders is comparable to the going price of the debt for the going price of the stock. Any bank recapitalizing the company would have forced the UAW and unsecured lender to probably take a bigger haircut in all of this. Ford is not accepting government money and yet they are in the process of taking similar action with Ford stock going to the UAW VEBA Healthcare trust to fulfill part of their obligations. Really give me a break with your diatribe. Be happy Uncle Sam stepped up to the plate to support the company. If not for Bush’s action back in December both GM and Chrysler would be out of business as no other bank or private entity stepped up to plate to provide financing for the company under a Chapter 11 reorg. No one. And you know what – your pocket book would have really hurt under that scenario when you could not get replacement parts for your car(s) or a dealer network to fix it. How many GM cars are their on the road at this very moment? – about 20 million, maybe more! Before you start spewing some more ideological crap – I highly doubt you are either a shareholder or an unsecured lender so your stake in this is zero. In any case if you are a share holder or unsecured lender – without the government financing GM you would be getting nothing anyway. I suggest you take the time and actually read GM’s prospectus they released late last month outlining the restructuring of the balance sheet. It is fair.

Than Chrysler is gone for good and thousand of additional people are out of work and the retirees get zilch. Learn what is happening as Chrysler is undergoing a TRADITIONAL bankruptcy under Chapter 11 reorganization section 363 aka a pre-packaged deal. The auto task force is only implementing what was outline in the agreement for the companies to receive the TARP bridge loans in december 2008. Chrysler is all but done for anyway - this is just managed (political) way to keep it around for a little while longer in some form. In GM's case - the government and Fritz need to put pressure on their "Unsecured" bondholders to convert their debt to equity in the exchange by the end of the month. That is valid and exactly what was done with GMAC when it became a bankholding company at the end of last year. Unsecured means these bondholders have little rights to GM's assets in liquidation. That is why some bought insurance for their investments. That is the problem. Sorry to tell you - the government is the only bank that will lend GM money. The government as with other banks set the terms. Ford cannot accept government money because it would break covenants set with its banks in the 2006 loans.

This guy is an clown and I am being kind. His quotes get more and more comical.

I see mass hysteria and conspiricy theories were created on one idiotic statement from a hack and self proclaimed historian in Mass. I assure everyone, do not believe what you read in these quotables. These guys know jack $h! about what is happening.

? Fiat and PSA do not have the cash to properly invest in Chrysler. Marchionne is smoking the same funny stuff that Schremp did if he believes Chrysler is salvagable. The French companies have already gotten bailed out. They should be ready for another life line from Mr. Sarcozy. How much longer before Fiat is in the same situation Chrysler is in right now? The above is nice in theory but not with the balance sheets those companies have. Especially when this global auto market remains weak for a long time. Just what the US market needs, more brands running around - looking more and more like low margin, low market share Europe. Fiat/PSA would be better off buying Saturn and Spring Hill. Companies need to go away.

From AN interview with Fritz published today: How much revenue do you lose to get rid of a Saturn; to get rid of a Hummer? Well, we actually showed a chart - it was measured in volume, not necessarily revenue. The revenue effect is actually less than the volume effect because the vehicles tend to sell for lower average transaction prices than our regular vehicles. But in the end, if I remember chart correctly, from '08, Saturn was about 100,000 retail cars, after you pulled out fleet and after you pull out employee sales. And, Pontiac was similar actually. Hummer, Saab - a fraction of that, a very small fraction of that. About 250,000 units? Oh, yeah. And even then, we're not conceding that because many of those sales were still ones where we provided some kind of GM support for them whether it was APR or in the case of Saturn, they were heavily driven by leasing which we've exited. So the question is: Can we bring the customer back into a Chevrolet or a Buick?

Kills me - it really does.

Now you are just being absurd and irrational. $10 billion dollars is a lot of money when the average margin in this business for ALL OEMs is 3-5%. Of course I exclude Porsche which is more of a hedge fund these days. I supplied the data in the link with all the plant and head count reductions etc that addressed your unsupported comment. In addition I will add the 2005 and 2007 health care deals with the UAW. One realized and the other not. The latter likely renegotiated to further reduce structural cost. What has Ford done? Last I looked they lost $14 billion last year and I think about $10 billion the year before. That is AIG type of money. Let me put it simply, if Ford takes one dime from Uncle Same, they break covenants with their lenders. If that happens, the $30+ billion (same as GM) debt they are sitting on goes up in smoke and the banks own the company instead of the Ford family. Just like GM, Ford also plans to dip into the cheap ESA funds once that becomes available. I also wonder how much Volvo is worth right now to anyone. Not a lot of takers and I highly doubt the Chinese will pay a premium for it. Whoever buys it is looking over at the Tata deal for Jag and LR and will think twice. Volvo has lost plenty of money in the past 2 years. In any case Mullaly is following Wagoner's play book but tailoring it for Ford as far as their restructuring goes. Unless you are a bank, write-downs are a non-issue and are a natural part of an infrustructure related industry especially during a restructuring. To your other point, high sales, low margin industry. GM made money on trucks and lost it on cars because well we know the answer on that one. However, the profits and transaction price on the new cars/crossovers has improved a lot in the past couple years. The company could not redesign everything at once. Let us do the math. If the original plan went forward the cars would be out one full year prior to the current crisis. They are in the same boat and sitting on some very nice cars that no one wants. The G8 is not knocking the world dead with all of the incentives on it. Camaro? In today's climate it will never touch the 100k per year pace that was originally anticipated. Once the novelty wears off, 1/2 that would be optimistic. I hope I am wrong because it is a first class effort as have been all their recent launches. There is that other thing to consider and that is CAFE. The writing has been on the wall since Katrina. You ever factor that into the equation? Plus, where GM would have had to price those vehicles, the market would be limited and stepping on Cadillac. Assuming if Chrysler makes it to 2011, which I doubt, the next generation LX cars to meet CAFE will sell a fraction of what they did. Out of context as you do not factor in the 2005 meltdown. GM had to sell to pay the UAW and the deal could not be realized fully. GM had big plans especially for SAAB, too bad Lehman happened. But I do agree with Subaru. They could never get things to click with lambda as Subaru wanted to continue with the boxter motor. But GM sold their shares to Toyota and walked away. In any case these are minor distractions. However you conveniently forget about the Daewoo deal and Chevy Europe and the huge expansion into Eastern Europe including Russia (which they may regret now). Yes and they did OK up until 2005 when the decision was made to bite the bullet and really fix the company. Plus the company came off bad launches from the last round of Zarrella cars. Malibu, Lacrosse, STS, G6 were not exactly homeruns in the market and added to their problems fast. I think we can agree that the above were not the company's best efforts. And I can not leave out the Delphi bankruptcy. That was not exactly good for the company. He should get the credit for building on the earlier success and the integration of GM-DAT. Then why argue with me when I point out your mis-information or skewed understanding of the situation. Remember knowing this business is my real-world. OT - It pains me to see what has happened to this company in the past year because the future product is incredible. I have waited 30 years for GM to get the product and company right and just when they did it all falls apart.

As I have also said in the past - Mullally is a great guy and has done great things for the company compared to Bill Ford, however, Ford just like GM is on the cusp of ruin if the economy does not pick up. They are in the same boat - all of them.

1. GM's cost structure has been unmanageable for years. RW is an accountant, so I'm assuming he knew this. Why was little action taken to address this? (Incremental stuff didn't work, now did it?) http://media.gm.com/us/gm/en/news/govt/docs/plan.pdf Page 24 - GM is on pace to take $10 billion of structural cost out of the company by the end of the year. That is data I had at my finger tips. Give me a break. Unlike you I took the time to show data. With a little digging I am sure I can fine how much cost was removed since 2000 and I am sure it is a big number. A big chunk of GM's long term debt right now was assumed because the accountants did the math and saw GM's pension plan was unfunded - well unfunded. At least right now it is about 90% funded - down about 20% since Sept.. Not bad given the market and the added liability GM took on by assuming more Delphi workers. 2. Jerry York, a Bd. member for Kerkorian, had recommended selling off Hummer and Saab years ago. He was told to STFU. GM is currently looking for buyers for Saab, Hummer & Saturn in the worst financial crisis in modern times. When might have been a better time to sell? It is a small percent and a fraction of GMs problems - systemically and financially. It is doubfull history books will show GM failed because they kept SAAB, HUMMER and Saturn too long. Case in point, if GM sold all of them when York requested it, GM might have recieved $1.5 billion. Maybe, as I think that is optimistic. Last I looked GM was looking for an additional $20 billion from the government. Things need to be put into perspective. 3. RW brought in Lutz after the Aztek fiasco. Not because he wanted to, but because this error revealed the desperate need to. Lutz then went ahead and improved much product development, but you've conveniently left out that the GMT900 pull-ahead, Soltice/Sky debacle and GTO joke also occurred under Maximum Bob's watch. Bob couldn't sell full line-up of Zeta to the board, despite ChyCo's success with the LXs. Somebody's got to answer to that product planning failure (although the interiors have gotten nicer!) Again you make little sense in light of the facts. GMT900 pull-ahead - revenue, revenue, revenue Soltice/Sky debacle - this one beats me. It was a management exercise for Lutz to get product design moving. Both did fairly well in the market with limited incentives that I saw. All but tripled the entry level 2 seat market. GTO joke - Kept Holden busy. GM is global you know. Again this was an exercise in leveraging GM's global resources. 10,000 sales a year is not bad considering little was invested. Better to have a product than none at all. As I said in an earlier post the LX cars are a joke with sales inflated almost 50% by fleet sales not to mention steep discounts. 4. Fiat, Saab, Isuzu & Subaru distractions all have cost billions--all were either underway or signed while RW was a CFO or CEO except Saab, which has simply been a huge black hole for 19 of GM's 20 years involved. Jack Smith?? Fiat is misunderstood. You need to dig into that one a bit. 5. China has been a success, but the groundwork for that idea was pioneered by VW & Chrysler--RW simply followed other's gameplan. If you couldn't figure out that a growing middle class in a country of 1.2 billion people might be a good market to get into, well.... GM was the first to step in with a Chinese partner and build modern vehicles with a serious plan for growth. Everyone else followed GM. Plus that was Jack Smith and a mid 1990s decision. 6. And there's the small matter of GM losing $80+billion in the last 4 years -- 3 of which were record sales years in the US. What job could any of us hold when the bottom line results were that awful? Much of that was write downs. In 1991 or 1992 GM wrote down on the order of $20 billion during a restructuring. When you close plants you have to take the write down. BTW actually record sales were in 2000-2001. Wow - I think I wrote these same points to you before probably word for word. enzl - Do some research. Thinking for yourself as you claim you do requires information, knowledge and understanding.

There are few people other than Rick Wagoner who could have taken GM as far as he did. However Henderson with government support will be able to make the structural changes Wagoner could never have dreamed of because of contractual liabilities. As for those crying about an expansive line up zeta cars - well Chrysler LX cars were fleet queens and GM would never have gotten the volume they need. Second, in light of CAFE and the recession where would zeta be? Just use the G8 as your guide. Don't let the current numbers fool you there are huge discounts on the vehile. Mathballing zeta was smart business.

Yea - why not. As I have pointed out in the past - you have missed the big picture and what the company has been up against for the better part of this past decade. Finally, after waiting decades for GM to get the product right and the org structured correctly - the rug gets pulled from under them last September. You are blind to the fact that every major auto company in the last quarter lost a substantial amount of money- real cash from their reserves, not paper write downs. With GM being in the middle of a restructuing they were just not in a position to handle it. Daimler just diluted itself 10% to raise capital because they were in worse shape financially than was reported in the press. I have a feeling when Toyota reports their full year in the next few weeks it will be ugly. GM above all else needed revenue to move foward. That meant GM 900s until 2010. Given the lead time in this business and GM limited resources, that was a smart bet at the time. Too bad the US government's lack of oversight destabilized commodity prices than the banking sector and having to contend with a Delphi bankruptcy and out of control health care cost. PS - Sorry enzl - your faulty logic in assessing the situation will not be forgiven because in a prior post you said Wagoner was a scape goat.

In need to get GM Matters - as for the other two, just reread both last year and Mary Ann Keller's Rude Awakening. GM is a shadow of the company it was years ago and from what I read about Why GM Matter, I would probably agree with much of it.

I hope that is true. He seemed to call BS when he saw it with a number of posters. He made for entertaining as well as educational reading. As for enzl - he is wrong and I have said it numerous times before. He does not get it and is looking for a scape goat. Too bad, years ago I used to enjoy reading his posts. Why is enzl wrong. Because GM was broke way before Wagoner officially took over. When GM is paying more for health care than steel, and your labor union will not make the hard cuts, there is not much else Wagoner could have done over the years without triggering a restructuring in the courts. Factor in Black September 2009 - and really I am at a loss. Under normal circumstance and market GM should be very strong today. But when the carpet is pulled from you because Bush euthanize Lehman brothers you hope and pray. I can nit pick Wagoner and he should have looked for money earlier and raised flags but that is small. Any body with half a brain that follows this business should have seen this train wrecking coming and as soon as the credit markets froze in August 2007, recognized GM was done for. At that point Wagoner only had the government and the Good Book - praying that the coming economic down turn was not what we are seeing right now. At least he stopped blaming Cerberus and the conspiracy plotted by them to hold back credit at GMAC inorder for GM to take Chrysler off their hands . I found those post by him in October pretty amusing.

Given all of GM's historic problems over the past 30 years, Wagoner has done the most out of any CEO during that period to address GM's structural problems and actually came within about 12 months of turning this company around before the rug was pulled out. I give Wagoner the credit he deserves. Too bad the guy who pulled the plug on Wagoner's career has less weeks of executive experience than Wagoner has years. Obama, Geitner and Rahm are afraid of another AIG fiasco like last week. Yet, GM's big bondholders are likely holding out of swaping debt for equity per the Bush viability requirements because they hold Credit Default Swap (Insurance) backed by AIG and if GM goes bankrupt they will get their money back from AIG - aka the US government. Either way, Fritz will likely will be given the job and that is not a bad thing.

LOL - You miss the point and overthink it. There is no hope. Did you read the opening link to this thread? VW's CEO is quoted he does not expect many OEMs to survive.

How is this for hope: Daimler, BMW plan to swap 7% stakes, report says Paul McVeigh Automotive News March 8, 2009 - 9:45 am ET http://www.autonews.com/article/20090308/C.../303089996/1193 MUNICH -- Daimler and BMW plan a share swap to boost cooperation between the two automakers, the German magazine Der Spiegel said today. Daimler would take a seven percent stake in BMW, and BMW would have the same stake in Daimler, the magazine said in a report on its Web site.

http://detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?A.../903070386/1148 The federal auto task force that arrives in Detroit on Monday has spent the past two weeks meeting with a range of industry players, pushing its work beyond the automakers' immediate cash crisis and strongly hinting at a longer term goal. Accounts of the task force's discussions with Detroit Three executives, industry trade groups and analysts suggest the advisers to the Obama administration's cabinet-level committee have gathered plenty of the basic financial information necessary to assess the need for immediate aid. But the group's focus appears to extend far beyond the balance sheet, looking more deeply into the question of what a successful U.S. auto industry would look like in the long run. http://www.autonews.com/article/20090307/A.../903079993/1193 Too many pleas Economy Minister Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg said in an interview published today there had been too many calls for state intervention and that if firms applied for insolvency it did not necessarily spell their demise. "If the business model is suitable for the future, an insolvency can also help to retain jobs," he told weekly magazine WirtschaftsWoche. "Our insolvency law gives firms the chance to write off debt and continue operations." Merkel, Schaeuble and Guttenberg are all conservatives, and leading Social Democrats (SPD) -- who rule in coalition with their rivals -- have stressed their desire to save Opel if possible as Germany heads for a federal election in September.

Ok - Sure. Keep up the good work. You insight is invaluable. Thanks

According to Fritz Henderson today - Opel will be nationalized in exchange for money. GM could end up with a minority stake.