The Week Ahead: Chrysler Born Again (Again), GM Files for C11

It’s pretty quiet today, news-wise. We’re picking-up dribs and drabs from here and there, but it’s the calm before the storm. The big news is, of course, GM’s forthcoming bankruptcy filing. As the Brits would say, it’s all over bar the shouting. Final confirmation arrives at midnight tonight, when the deadline expires for GM’s bondholders’ to swap $27 billion in debt for a 10 percent equity stake in a new GM.

Expect the MSM feeding frenzy/hand wringing to begin tomorrow, bright and early. Also tomorrow, federally-funded, Italian-controlled “new” Chrysler will be named “lead bidder” for “old” Chrysler’s prime assets. When you’re in a race of one, you win! At the same time (roughly), the United Auto Workers (UAW) will vote on concessions that will help usher in the new post-C11 GM. Expect more window dressing from the union whose health care fund will own a majority share in the reborn automaker.

Before you, the taxpayer, can “invest” in Chrysler LLC, federal bankruptcy judge Arthur Gonzalez must push aside—I mean, carefully consider—legal objections and challenges to the Presidential Task Force on Automobile’s cunning plan to foist ChryCo on Fiat. This he will do on Thursday.

Also on Thursday, bankrupt parts maker and former GM division Delphi is due in federal court to throw its hands up in despair and die. This is the umpteenth continuance of what would have been the company-killing coup de grâce. The judge will no doubt issue yet another postponement, out of respect for the dead.

On Friday, the UAW will announce that its members have ratified their new contract with GM! Huzzah!

Friday’s the big day for GM: bankruptcy. Or not. That depends on the President’s and the company’s spinmeisters, mostly. Traditionally, GM saves its bad news until Friday afternoon, when the markets are shut. If there’s no other news event taking place to help hide their shame, they could wait ’til Sunday, when GM will default on $1billion worth of maturing debt.

As Barack Obama personally announced Chrysler’s filing, expect (at the least) a concomitant presidential statement on the bankruptcy, reiterating the same rhetoric about leaner, meaner, government backed, etc. The MSM is going to play the GM-C11-story-is-still-something-of-a-mystery angle. But there’s no question that GM AND the economy will BOTH get the blame.

TTAC has a few GM obits/editorials ready to go. I will keep my powder dry on the final “General Motors Death Watch” until the day. We will not go GM mad; there will be the usual mix of features and reviews. If our servers melt, rest assured we have a technical team standing by to press the paddles to electronic chest. Irony, eh? You can’t escape it.