Search results for GM
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Posted
Nov 07 2008, 12:17 PM
by
Minyanville
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
The auto industry wants to back a truck up to the US Treasury and drive away with $50 billion.
General Motors, Ford and Chrysler say they need the money to get them through the worst auto market in about 25 years.
But the money wouldn't necessarily be used to develop the next generation of fuel-efficient or electric cars. Legacy costs are killing the US auto industry and the automakers say they need about $25 billion for healthcare costs. The balance would be used for general liquidity and could be delivered in different ways, including short-term borrowing from the Federal Reserve.
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Posted
Feb 04 2009, 06:13 AM
by
Bernhard Warner and Matthew Yeomans
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
This post comes from partner site The Big Money.
A half-million-dollar salary and no bonus beyond ordinary stock dividends. That's the limit to executive pay for bailed-out companies under a new plan expected to be announced today by President Barack Obama and Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, the business pages trumpet today. "The new rules would be far tougher than any restrictions imposed during the Bush administration, and they could force executives to accept deep reductions in their current pay. They come amid rising public fury about huge pay packages for executives at financial companies being propped up by federal tax dollars," the New York Times writes. The good times, it appears, will be over. Bloomberg cites an Obama administration source, who informs that "the rules will force greater transparency on the use of corporate jets, office renovations and holiday parties as well as golden parachutes offered to executives when they leave companies."
The pressure on banks to show their austere side is growing. Yesterday, Wells Fargo hastily canceled a four-day convention in Las Vegas for its top mortgage bankers to quell a PR uproar, the Wall Street Journal reports. The bank, the recipient of a $25 billion government cash infusion, decided to cancel after word of the trip leaked out and "television networks and bloggers pummeled the bank," the newspaper reports. Another bank under fire, Citigroup, said it would not back out of its $400 million marketing deal with the New York Mets, but it may seek to renegotiate part of the deal, the WSJ writes in a separate story. The Mets brass must be relieved. They just spent $36 million to re-sign starting pitcher Oliver Perez.
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Posted
Mar 06 2009, 02:08 AM
by
Bernhard Warner and Matthew Yeomans
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
This post comes from partner site The Big Money.
General Motors (GM) is now thinking about the benefits of bankruptcy -- as long as it's speedy and the government can finance it, the Wall Street Journal reports this morning. Last month, the ailing carmaker claimed Chapter 11 would be far more costly as it lobbied for make-or-break bailout No. 2. "The change in thinking, combined with the disclosure Thursday that GM's auditor has raised 'substantial doubt' about the car maker's ability to keep going, appears to move GM closer to the possibility it will file for reorganization," the newspaper writes. Part of the change of heart is that GM is playing a game of beat-the-clock. It is not only locked into tense negotiations for an additional $30 billion in aid, but it also must close a deal with its bondholders by the end of the month. The bankruptcy route -- a sort of nuclear option -- could "prod bondholders into making concessions," the WSJ figures.
There's no denying things look bleak at GM. On Thursday auditors slapped a "substantial doubt" tag on GM's windshield, saying even if it received the entire $30 billion it hoped to borrow from the federal government, survival is far from guaranteed, the New York Times writes. BusinessWeek doesn't help GM's case, pointing out that the carmaker's pitch for aid is partly based on a projection that the auto-buying market will return to boom time levels within three years
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Posted
Mar 09 2009, 03:06 AM
by
Bernhard Warner and Matthew Yeomans
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
This post comes from partner site The Big Money.
The World Bank on Sunday delivered yet more bad news that goes well beyond evaporating stock portfolios. The current economic crisis, borne out of dodgy U.S. home mortgages, has grown into "the first global recession since World War II." The resulting credit crisis is wreaking havoc on the developing world, threatening to turn back the clock on poverty reduction by years, the Washington Post reports. Making matters worse, the World Bank acknowledges that the aid needed to help the world's poorest through this crisis could be asking too much of struggling rich countries. According to the New York Times, the assessment put forward by the World Bank is worse than private analysts' already-dire projections. The financial disruptions, the bank warned, are "all but certain to overwhelm the ability of institutions like it and the International Monetary Fund to provide a buffer," the newspaper writes.
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Posted
Mar 10 2009, 03:07 AM
by
Bernhard Warner and Matthew Yeomans
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
This post comes from partner site The Big Money.
Merger Monday is back. At least for Big Pharma. Merck (MRK) announced on Monday that it would buy rival Schering-Plough (SGP) for $41.1 billion in cash and stock, a deal the New York Times neatly sums up as being "all about the drugs." Such mega-mergers were to be expected after Pfizer (PFE) stumped up $68 billion to buy Wyeth in January. "But if Pfizer-Wyeth was driven in part by desperation, analysts said, for Merck the Schering deal may actually be a good opportunity to restock its medicine chest," the newspaper writes. Merck, with several patents expiring, would get access to successful Schering products like the prescription allergy spray Nasonex and to biotechnology drugs in development.
The Wall Street Journal focuses on the rapidly consolidating sector.
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Posted
Mar 17 2009, 03:10 AM
by
Bernhard Warner and Matthew Yeomans
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
This post comes from partner site The Big Money.
Working for a vilified corporate titan is not easy, but for American International Group (AIG) execs, Monday was a day they probably should have stayed home. Death threats against employees, possible fresh subpoenas, indignation from lawmakers, and a vow from President Obama to make the taxpayers whole again all added to the public drama around the stricken insurer's controversial $165 million bonus payout. "It's a mob effect," a senior AIG executive told the Washington Post, describing the level of public outrage directed at the company and its employees. "It's putting people's lives in danger."
Washington was the epicenter of the outrage on Monday. Though Treasury officials knew of the planned payout for months, they voiced their indignation just as the checks were being cut over the past few days. Obama added his outrage to the AIG bonus furor, vowing to "pursue every single legal avenue to block" the payouts.
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Posted
Mar 23 2009, 03:10 AM
by
Bernhard Warner and Matthew Yeomans
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
This post comes from partner site The Big Money.
Private investors are needed to buy as much as $1 trillion in bad bank loans, dubious mortgages, and other toxic debt. That's the frank plea the White House has been broadcasting this weekend as the administration steps up its plan to purchase troubled assets and remove them from the balance sheets of banks. Ideally, this will spur banks to lend more money to consumers and companies, the New York Times reports. In other words, the linchpin to the Geithner plan is for the Treasury to round up enough deep-pocketed investors to buy up as much as $500 billion, and possibly more, corrosive debt. "We don't want the government to assume all the risk," Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner told the Wall Street Journal. "We want the private sector to work with us." The newspaper pointed out the irony that Washington desperately needs Wall Street "even at a time when Wall Street moneymakers are being vilified by the public and politicians."
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Posted
Mar 26 2009, 02:51 AM
by
Bernhard Warner and Matthew Yeomans
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
This post comes from The Big Money.
Apres le deluge of economic ruin, along come new regulations to make sure it never happens again. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner will propose a sweeping set of new rules today as he seeks to install greater oversight on risk-taking in financial markets, "pushing for tougher rules on how big companies manage their finances as well as tighter controls on some hedge funds and money-market mutual funds," writes the Wall Street Journal. On the heels of giving more power to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., Geithner is expected to advocate a new raft of regulations for large financial firms -- including forcing them to hold more capital reserves -- and handing more power to the Treasury to monitor emerging economic risks. The Treasury plan (subject to congressional approval) would give the government "vast new powers over 'systemically important' banks and other financial institutions that are so big that their collapse would jeopardize the economy as a whole," writes the New York Times.
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Posted
Mar 30 2009, 03:05 AM
by
Bernhard Warner and Matthew Yeomans
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
This post comes from partner site The Big Money.
Most of the details about President Obama's auto bailout plan leaked out on Sunday. In a move that surprised Detroit and Washington, the Obama administration pushed General Motors CEO and Chairman Rick Wagoner out the door, The New York Times reports, as the White House intends "to keep a tight rein on the companies it is bailing out." The White House was not done there. On condition of receiving further funding, Chrysler was instructed to merge with the Italian automaker Fiat within 30 days, Forbes writes, adding, in the favored metaphor of the day, that "Obama Takes the Wheel in Detroit."
According to The Wall Street Journal, the Italians just may be Chrysler's best hope. And even with a Chrysler-Fiat alliance and a reshuffling at GM, it looks like a rough road ahead for the ailing automakers. Citing a memo leaked from the auto task force, the WSJ writes that GM and Chrysler "may well require utilizing the bankruptcy code in a quick and surgical way." The newspaper continues, a "structured bankruptcy . . . would be a tool to make it easier for General Motors and Chrysler to clear away old liabilities so they can get on a path to success."
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Posted
Apr 01 2009, 03:09 AM
by
Bernhard Warner and Matthew Yeomans
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
This post comes from partner site The Big Money.
Ousted General Motors (GM) boss Rick Wagoner might consider this an April Fools' joke, but The New York Times reports that the Obama administration is looking to ease the distressed automaker into “controlled” bankruptcy -- that's "somewhere between a prepackaged bankruptcy and court chaos, by persuading at least some creditors to agree to a plan that would cleave the company into two pieces."
Essentially, the government plans to use its considerable leverage of being the de facto lender of last resort to calm the fears of potential creditors. GM's new chief executive, Frederick "Fritz" Henderson, also telegraphed the government's plans in an interview with The Wall Street Journal, saying, "They think that I can lead this company inside or outside of bankruptcy court."
The administration appears to be drawing in part from its experience with troubled banks, the goal being to create "a new, healthier GM, but leaving behind its liabilities and less valuable assets, perhaps for liquidation," writes the Times.
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