On 05/17/07 04:30 am Ted Mittelstaedt wrote:


But a basic principle of capitalism is that the the company's only
responsibility is to its owners/shareholders, and if all the latter want
is a quick buck now and never mind the long term, then that's what the
company bosses are supposed to do.

Perce

"Percival P. Cassidy" <nobody (AT) notmyISP (DOT) net> wrote

And how exactly are the shareholders going to make a quick buck by
breaking Chrysler up into pieces?

You can't take an entity worth negative 5 billion, and break it into 3
chunks each worth positive 4 billion. If DC could have done that, they
would have. Remember they said all options on the table.

The only way the shareholders will quickly get their money out of Chrysler
is
to manage it as a unified car company, and get it producing attractive
product that new car buyers want to buy, so that there is some hope for
a prospective purchaser that there will be a return on his investment.
With decent management there is a good chance of this happening for
Cerberus, that's why they bought it. DC on the other hand, was hobbled
by bad management and Dieter Zetsche knew that also, and knew there
wasn't much he could do about it due to the politics of the situation.

We also don't know if Mercedes is going to be helped. For all we know,
a year from now, Damlier will still be posting losses.

Ted

"Ken Finney" <kenneth.c.finney (AT) boeing (DOT) com> wrote

This is an extreme simplification of things.

The head honchos of the UAW have their own accountants who can read a
balance sheet. They aren't dumb. This so called "take it or leave it"
offer
was negotiated between Cerberus and the UAW before Chrysler was
purchased. Proof that the UAW and Cerberus came to an agreement is
that Cerberus went ahead with the purchase - they never would have done
so if the UAW hadn't struck a deal.

The problem now is in selling this agreement to the UAW membership. So
what the apparent tack is going to be, is that both the head honchos at the
UAW and Cerberus have worked out a propaganda campaign to convince
the membership that it's big bad Cerberus who is pushing things around and
that this take it or leave it agreement is the only option.

Of course there is. Once the UAW accepts the contract this summer, you
would
be daft if you think that Cerberus is going to sit back and run the company
forever. Not at all, instead, they will be very concerned with getting the
company
profitable - but if for some reason they fail, they will have no choice but
to write
it off and break up the company.

And here we go with the Yugo all over again....

Ted

Ted Mittelstaedt wrote:

Exactly, and without the hamstrings tied to Stuttgart, the company
stands a decent chance of doing that. There's no question that Chrysler
has creative and competent engineers. They just need to be allowed to
put their ideas into production.

I'll go out on a real sturdy limb and say "BET on that." Well, Mercedes
at least if not all of Daimler-Benz (I assume they'll revert to that
corporate name). Mercedes is already being flogged worldwide for their
horrendous lack of reliability. If anything saves Daimler in the long
run, its going to be either Freightliner or their aerospace arm.

On May 18, 1:31 pm, Steve <n... (AT) spam (DOT) thanks> wrote:
http://www.bizjournals.com/portland/...4/daily14.html

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/6641493.stm

You may find that this has been overcome. My understanding is that the
problems are/were confined to certain models -- albeit popular ones -- and
these have now been addressed.

The only major issue in a new car I can remember in 20 years of driving
Mercs is the failure after 2000 miles of the engine in a W123 (the old
standard saloon/sedan). After fixing there was an electrical short which
turned out to originate from a loose screw in the distributor...

My 1993 190E needed some fairly big work once and 2001 CLK has had no issues
worth mentioning.

I have a feeling some contributors here like to 'enjoy' the woes of Merc
because it was Jonny Foreigner that took over a 'venerable' US brand...

Whilst all automobile manufacturers contribute to the progress in the motor
car people seem to forget that Merc has been/is at the forefront, whether it
is developing its own technology or supporting and introducing third-party
advances (such as ABS).

And BMW was nearly bought by Mercredes in the fifties and if it hadn't
developed its new range in the sixties who knows whether it would still be
with us today. And so?

Maybe Chrysler will survive, maybe not. At the end of the day it is you,
the American customer, who will help decide. And not just the few of you
Chrysler fans that participate here.

DAS

For direct replies replace nospam with schmetterling
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"Steve" <no (AT) spam (DOT) thanks> wrote

[...]
Mercedes is already being flogged worldwide for their

"Ted Mittelstaedt" <tedm (AT) toybox (DOT) placo.com> wrote

You need to find somebody that wants some of the pieces without some other
ones. You need 2 or 3 buyers that all have different opionions of what
piece is worth more. But really, whether they split the company up or not
isn't important. They could do the opposite, and buy something that they
can add to Chrysler that make the whole worht more than the parts. The
important thing is to put together some deal that pays you more than you
have invsted in it. The amounts that people pay for these companies doesn't
have all that much of a basis in reality, and one group may have a different
idea of its value than another. Due diligence is a body of opinions. I
mean, look at Mercedes. They paid 37 Billion, but they were happy to sell
for effectively zero dollars. They gave Chrysler away. Did Chrysler really
change that much in a few years? Think about it.

There are a number of other ways to turn a quick buck. One way is to have
an IPO. Some companies won't IPO for as much as you paid, but sometimes
that's what they do. Another way is to have Chrysler Corp borrow a ton of
money, secured, and then the private share holders just pocket it. If the
company can't handle the load, the bank gets it. You can even do both.

Here's an example of doing both. Celanese Corp was purchased by private
Blackstone group buying all the stock. They took out a big loan and kept the
money, followed by an IPO. Do some research on it.

In article <NfidnZYfuZJYg9LbnZ2dnUVZ8vydnZ2d (AT) pipex (DOT) net>,
"Dori A Schmetterling" <info (AT) nospam (DOT) co.uk> wrote:

Which will depend on whether Chrysler can build what the consumers want.
Under DC Chrysler didn't.

And at other times. It's not as if Chrysler has had an unbroken run of
black numbers before Mercedes.

That's been stated in this forum quite a few times. (And one doesn't need
this NG to know that.)

DAS

For direct replies replace nospam with schmetterling
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"who" <i (AT) notaspammer (DOT) net> wrote

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