Fiat can’t wait for a full merger with now again cash-rich and profitable Chrysler, but it will wait until its legal dispute with the UAW’s VEBA healthcare trust has been resolved. “We intend to wait for the Delaware verdict before moving forward on the merger” with Chrysler, Fiat Chairman John Elkann told Reuters. (Read More…)

The 12-person protest that took place at Chrysler’s Warren, Michgan truck plant got little notice in the automotive news cycle, save for a couple of mentions on the usual aggregators. In truth, it’s not the juiciest story to sell in this click-driven wasteland, though these stories tend to raise the most interesting questions. This example highlights an issue that is going to dog the UAW for some time – how will the UAW control their workers when they are also the owners?

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Sergio Marchionne can’t wait to get his hands  on the 41.5 percent of Chrysler, which are in the hands of the UAW’s VEBA trust. Once Fiat is in total control, Fiat and Chrysler could be merged, and the cash could be used to … but you know the drill from years back. Currently at stake are 3.3 percent. Fiat has a call option, but the UAW trust doesn’t want to fork the shares over. (Read More…)

The Voluntary Employee Beneficiary Association, or VEBA, was initiated as a way to get retiree healthcare costs off the books of Detroit’s auto makers. While VEBA makes balance sheets look better, they are still an exorbitant legacy costs for the Big Three, and things are about to get a lot worse.

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News that the government will sell only $6b-$8b worth of its GM equity has been joined by an even more surprising GM IPO announcement: GM will buy the Treasury’s entire $2.1b holding of preferred stock in the initial offering. GM has not announced how much it will pay for the stake, and the Detroit News reports that it’s not yet clear if GM will also buy some $400m in preferred stock held by the Canadian and Ontario governments. We’re also getting word via Twitter that GM will put $4b in cash and $2b worth of its stock into its overdrawn UAW pension fund, as well as making a $2.8b payment to the UAW VEBA account. With a $5b line of credit secured, GM says these and other steps will reduce its debt by $11b over an unspecified timeline. And speaking to Reuters, GM CEO Dan Akerson made it clear what the point of these moves are:

It’s up to people like you and me, the burden we share, that we deliver on the promise and return the investment to the American taxpayers. We are going to do our level best to make that happen, and we will only do that by expanding our industrial base and entering new markets and being a better competitor.

Of course, we’ll have to see what value The General places on the preferred stock to know how seriously Akerson should be taken. After all, talk is cheap and money isn’t. [UPDATE: It appears that GM will buy the preferred stock for $25.50 each, essentially giving the Government its book value of $2.14b]

When the music finally stopped at Old GM, the UAW’s VEBA fund was left holding a lot of IOUs. On those merits, the union’s benefit trust was given about 17.5 percent of the equity in the bailed-out and re-organized New GM. UAW leadership has always maintained that having its membership’s benefits staked on the company’s financial performance would not change its mission, and that VEBA’s representative on GM’s board, Steve Girsky, would operate free from union influence. And one hopes he would, considering he’s being paid well to advise CEO Ed Whitacre. But the tension between GM’s IPO sprint and the UAW’s non-VEBA interests never goes away, and the Wall Street Journal [sub] is reporting that the latest spat is over the old hobbyhorse of buyouts.

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As if to confirm that GM’s  benefit obligation situation could actually be worse than today’s GAO report lets on, Automotive News [sub] is reporting that the UAW has sued GM over $450m in unfunded healthcare obligations for Delphi retirees. GM promised to fund a $450m Voluntary Employee Benefit Association for Delphi retirees in 2007, and Delphi’s bankruptcy court confirmed the commitment in last October. But, according to the UAW suit:

the UAW made a written demand that the company honor its contractual obligation to make the foregoing payment [last October... but] that UAW demand was rejected and since that time the company has failed and refused to make the contractually required payment.

That obligation apparently was not voided by GM’s bankruptcy, although The General’s spokesfolks have yet to officially comment on the UAW’s suit.

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The UAW’s VEBA health care trust fund currently owns 17.5 percent of GM and 55 percent of Chrysler, but with IPO plans still nebulous at both, the fund is short on options for improving cash flow. Remember, the union doesn’t want to own these companies… it would have preferred cash, thanks. But since bailout negotiations allowed the automakers to fund their VEBA obligations with stock and warrants, VEBA has little choice but to monetize them. And while GM and Chrysler limp towards an eventual IPO, VEBA’s 362.4m Ford stock warrants are actually doing pretty well relative to their $9.20 exercise price. So it’s no huge surprise to hear [via Automotive News [sub]] that VEBA is planning on dumping its entire allotment of Ford warrants, in a move that could be worth “at least” $1.27b. And it’s no coincidence that this news comes on the same day that Ford is announcing a $3b debt prepayment, and the day after its sold Volvo to Geely for $1.8b.

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A lot of what you hear about Steve Girsky sounds decidedly positive: an outspoken critic of GM, Girsky lasted less than a year as Rick Wagoner’s “roving aide-de-camp,” reportedly due to frustration with management heel-dragging. He even earned TTAC’s “lesser-of-two-evils” endorsement to be Presidential Car Czar over Steve “Chooch” Rattner. When he was appointed to be the UAW rep on GM’s board, representing the union’s VEBA trust which owns 17.5 percent of GM’s stock, he was lauded as someone who could keep his union allegiances at bay. But as special advisor to GM CEO/Chairman Ed Whitacre, Girsky had better be prioritizing GM’s best interests. Reuters reports that he’s being paid a cool $900k in stock grants for his advice. That’s in addition to $200k director’s salary and reimbursement for “living expenses and travel to and from Detroit.” Not bad considering the fuss people are making over compensation at TARP-recipient financial institutions.

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Ford has wrapped up some much-needed financial wrangling today, as it struggles with with its monstrous pile of debt. According to Automotive News [sub], Ford transferred $13.2b in debt and about $4b in cash to the UAW-run health care trust fund, completing a long-awaited liability consolidation. $1.4b of the transfer was a scheduled payment on a $6.7b note, while $500m more was a prepayment on that note. Ford paid $610m (cash) on another $6.5 billion note, transferred $620m from a temporary account and $3.5b from an internal VEBA fund and handed over warrants to purchase 362 million shares of Ford common stock at $9.20 per share. All together, the move reportedly adds $7b in debt to Ford’s balance sheet.

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