TTAC's Deep Throat Explains GMAC's ResCap Crisis
Residential Capital (a.k.a. Rescap) is GMAC's mortgage-finance company. GMAC's owned jointly by GM and Cerberus (the private equity firm that also owns 80 percent of Chrysler). Now, on Monday, ResCap announced it "might not be able to meet debt obligations" unless it secures an additional $600m by the end of June. Translation? "Rescap's cramming its debt on its bondholders. It's now a game of chicken. They're offering to convert unsecured debt into secured debt– but not all creditors get even money. Some will be forced to take a hit. And if you don't agree early, you may really get hit with a loss. Of course, there's a lot of lawyering going on to figure this out. (Keep in mind that this is mostly a paper for paper deal.) Meanwhile, the company's problems have not gone away. The question is how much GMAC will contribute to Rescap to keep it afloat. Do the bondholders want to see it meltdown and pursue recoveries through court, or go along with the plan and delay what may be inevitable anyways. Effectively, Rescap is admitting its bankrupt but trying to find a solution to stay out of court – which is an expensive process and subjects loss of control of the company to creditors. The point is that GMAC's valuation keeps going downhill and its own credit situation worsens as it throws money at Rescap. At some point the music will stop."
More by Robert Farago
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If more Americans were patriotic and did their American car buying duties, GM and Chrysler and GMAC wouldn’t be the poor victims that they are. :-) Ahem, ahem, if GM (and Chrysler) had been more patriotic and not screwed so many American buyers (the real victims)for so many years with their lousy cars, they wouldn't be in this situation....
Too bad we don't have some kind of time machine that would let us play this thing back with different decisions made to see what would have happened. York was hammering GM to sell stuff and was harping on cash.
Something that the car manufactures may have missed was the little fact that those booming sales a few years back saturated the market. People are still paying those 2 and 3 year old cars off; they're not ready to buy another one right away. Personally, I've got 4 right now; a Pacifica, a Jetta, and two Fieros. Say what you want about Chrysler; the Pacifica is almost 4 years old now and hasn't given any problems at all. The Fieros; well, there's been a lot of tales told but even after 23 years they're still running and reliable - and my preferred daily driver. Thanks to those of you who hate these little cars; you keep the price of parts down for me. The Jetta has been a nightmare - it'll be the first to go and I'll never ever own another German car. What a pile... So what is Detroit going to do to cause me to want another car? They've got to improve their products a lot if they want to improve sales; their biggest competition is the cars they've already sold.
Anyone buying a foreign car should learn/remember in macro economics that your money is just headed overseas. The US is a capitalistic market, not a government subsidized one like other auto companies have the luxury of. So buy what brand you want but remember your kids may be speaking a second language in the US as we trade it away! As some buy foreign cars, foreign companies in other countries just buy up our US real estate and US companies in return. Think about it who bought Jag from Ford again, and how did the German’s get control of Chrysler? GM's market share in the US today may be smaller than their Global Share, but their growth globally is expanding rapidly. I would not count them out yet.