Quote Of The Day: Chry The Beloved Automaker Edition

by Edward Niedermeyer

January 13th, 2010 9:48 PM

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quote of the day chry the beloved automaker edition

Chrysler may file a suit challenging the congressionally mandated dealer cull arbitration, reveals CEO Sergio Marchionne to Automotive News [sub].Why? Because it’s just not fair that dealers pressured congress to give them a fair shake. Wounded by the arbitrary backlash against his arbitrary cull, Marchionne threw his head back and cried unto the heavens:

Ask me what fairness is involved in all this. Why doesn’t anyone ask what’s fair to Chrysler?

Can’t Chrysler just catch a break? Besides the $14b in TARP money, the re-writing of bankruptcy law to secure it the best possible deal at the expense of “secured” lenders, the $1.5b rescue of its finance arm and unwarranted endorsements from government officials, Chrysler hasn’t received so much as a kind word from anyone. Worse still, Marchionne only got the whole re-financed, re-organized company for no money.

When Lord? When is it going to be Sergio’s time?

#Arbitration #Bailout #Chrysler #DealerCull #QuoteOfTheDay #SergioMarchionne

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7 of 13 comments

Jimboy on Jan 13, 2010

Not feeling the love so much, Edward. Especially after seeing the smarmy photo attached to your comments. How about a column on the strip and flip by Daimler,(nobodies talking!) or the gutting by Cerberus. Most, if not all, of the TARP money will be repaid, with interest,(no mention here of the 25 Billion forgiven for AIG?). Chrysler was FORCED into bankruptcy by the feds, and its only hope of survival at all was the merger with Fiat.(Which is not a takeover, btw.) Chrysler's dealer body was bloated and underperforming, and needed pruning badly. IMO they should have scrapped most of them and started fresh. Nor was it culled by Marchionne. It's easy to be clever and witty at someone else's expense; why not give us some real news that you've researched and discovered by yourself? A little fairness and balance would help, too.

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- Robert.Walter on Jan 13, 2010
  
  Forced? I think bankruptcy is the natural result of insolvency; the Fed. did not force this, indeed, they even tried to forestall it with bridge loans. Not a takeover? For all intents and purposes it is and if the whole venture doesn't blow up it will be. Not culled by Marchionne? Nothing happened in Manhattan BK court without Sr. Marchionne's blessing. (Personally, I don't think the cull was a bad thing if it helps to consolidate sales into the stronger remaining dealers, or to move the dealer footprint to locations that make more sense and don't compete with one another ... during the high cull season, here was an excellent analysis on why fewer, within reason, dealers result in better profits elsewhere on ttac ...)
  
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- Texlovera on Jan 14, 2010
  
  "Most, if not all, of the TARP money will be repaid, with interest,(no mention here of the 25 Billion forgiven for AIG?). " 1) If you think that the TARP money will ever be repaid, I have a bridge in Brooklyn to sell you. 2) What the hell does AIG have to do with Chrysler's bailout? Plus, doesn't the "forgiving" of AIG's MUCH BIGGER bailout tend to refute your assertion that the TARP money will be repaid?
  
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Jimboy on Jan 14, 2010

The feds refused to accept Chrysler's restructuring plan as presented, ergo, they were forced into insolvency. 35%, when achieved, is not a takeover. The UAW has 55% already, did they take it over? (Re-dealer culls), I may be wrong on this one but I believe those decisions were taken pre-Marchionne. He would not have had enough info to decide which dealers to drop at that point in time.

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- Robert.Walter on Jan 14, 2010
  
  The plan was unworkable as presented. Chrysler did not have the assets (personnel, bookshelf technologies, economies of scale, competitive product portfolio, stable market presents) to reasonably deliver their plan. Go back and check the equity share, and how this will increase as certain benchmarks are hit. One of these will be the Fed will give a chunk of its equity to Fiat once, IIRC, new small car launches (500), and more when a new engine launches. VEBA's share is in proportion to the unfunded liabilities and what that share will reasonably be worth at some point in the future. What is not publicized, but to doubt exists, is this deal must have multiple options: a Fiat call option to buy out the remaining VEBA shares, or a VEBA put option to sell shares to Fiat, both within certain time and price windows (note, price may be a floating value based on an external indicator). As one who negotiated a number of supply contracts with Old/New Chrysler during the BK process, I can tell you that Fiat was guiding the actions being taken by the Chrysler operative personnel. Re. the dealer cull, to me it seems natural to cull the maximum number of dealers while one has the chance to do such a restructuring move ... there is nothing preventing the new owner from later reversing some cuts on a case-by-case basis (although the dealers fighting the process has made this less and less likely to happen in the medium term).
  
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Geo. Levecque on Jan 14, 2010

More Chrysler dealers should have been sacked,also here in Canada No dealers where closed to my knowledge, many of them should have been mainly because the way they treated Customers, much like most to the GM dealers who where sacked here !

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Accs on Feb 08, 2010

I can just imagine a cruel laughter about the word Chrysler in between them both. Kind of like a hot potato... No one wants it.

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