CIT Group Inc is in talks with JPMorgan Chase & Co and Goldman Sachs Group Inc about short-term financing as it looks for ways to avoid bankruptcy, a source close to the company said on Friday.
Bankruptcy, however, is still possible over the next few days, and CIT, a 101-year-old lender that services nearly 1 million small and mid-sized businesses, is continuing to talk with regulators about the situation, the source said.
Financing talks have turned primarily to arranging for a debtor-in-possession (DIP) loan for the lender in case of a bankruptcy, CNBC reported, adding that talks were also continuing for financing out of court.
JPMorgan and Morgan Stanley were in talks with other banks about a DIP loan, Bloomberg reported.
CIT bondholders were scheduled to hold another conference call yesterday, a source in the lender’s bondholder group said.
“They haven’t thrown the towel, and they still are trying to work very hard to get some sort of funding, but at the end of the day I still think that there is a very high risk of a bankruptcy event,” said Sameer Gokhale, an analyst at KBW.
CIT is in search of US$2 billion to US$3 billion in financing, said the source, who declined to be identified because the talks were private. The company is also in talks with bondholders about a debt for equity swap, the source said.
But the source in the bondholders’ group said many bondholders were pursuing a “debt for new debt” exchange and that a debt for equity exchange was not a real consideration.
The first source added one potential scenario was a sale of some assets to raise capital. The lender had wanted regulators’ permission to transfer assets to its bank unit, but that did not happen, the source said.
“It is just going to allow them to pass the next 30 to 60 days, but they have exhausted their balance sheet condition so fast that it was kind of breathtaking,” said Keith Wirtz, president and chief investment officer of Fifth Third Asset Management.
The company sought additional help even after gaining the status of bank holding company in December so it could draw US$2.33 billion of taxpayer money from the Treasury’s Troubled Asset Relief Program.
But the administration of US President Barack Obama declined help, saying it had set high standards for granting aid to companies and leaving private investors as the one alternative to avoid collapse.
The impact of CIT’s demise would likely pale by comparison with the collapse of investment bank Lehman Brothers Inc last September, analysts said.
“If they can’t survive, the market will resolve this for them and move on. I don’t see massive systematic disruptions if CIT will not exist three months from now,” Wirtz said.
Still, the ripples of a collapse could be widespread and worsen the effects of the economic downturn for some firms.
CIT has about US$40 billion of long-term debt, said independent research firm CreditSights. About US$1.1 billion of debt will come due next month, followed by about US$2.5 billion by year end.
The New York Post reported JPMorgan could acquire CIT’s factoring unit, which finances more than US$50 billion of wholesale inventory, at a time of the year when the collapse of the lender could disrupt retailers holidays plans.
CIT declined to comment and JPMorgan was not available for comment.
WASHINGTON’S INCENTIVES: The CHIPS Act set aside US$39 billion in direct grants to persuade the world’s top semiconductor companies to make chips on US soil The US plans to award more than US$6 billion to Samsung Electronics Co, helping the chipmaker expand beyond a project in Texas it has already announced, people familiar with the matter said. The money from the 2022 CHIPS and Science Act would be one of several major awards that the US Department of Commerce is expected to announce in the coming weeks, including a grant of more than US$5 billion to Samsung’s rival, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), people familiar with the plans said. The people spoke on condition of anonymity in advance of the official announcements. The federal funding for
HIGH DEMAND: The firm has strong capabilities of providing key components including liquid cooling technology needed for AI servers, chairman Young Liu said Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) yesterday revised its revenue outlook for this year to “significant” growth from a “neutral” view forecast five months ago, due to strong demand for artificial intelligence (AI) servers from cloud service providers. Hon Hai, a major assembler of iPhones that is also known as Foxconn, expects AI server revenues to soar more than 40 percent annually this year, chairman Young Liu (劉揚偉) told investors. The robust growth would uplift revenue contribution from AI servers to 40 percent of the company’s overall server revenue this year, from 30 percent last year, Liu said. In the three-year period
LONG HAUL: Largan Energy Materials’ TNO-based lithium-ion batteries are expected to charge in five minutes and last about 20 years, far surpassing conventional technology Largan Precision Co (大立光) has formed a joint venture with the Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI, 工研院) to produce fast-charging, long-life lithium-ion batteries for electric vehicles, mobile electronics and electric storage units, the camera lens supplier for Apple Inc’s iPhones said yesterday. Largan Energy Materials Co (萬溢能源材料), established in January, is developing high-energy, fast-charging, long-life lithium-ion batteries using titanium niobium oxide (TNO) anodes, it said. TNO-based batteries can be fully charged in five minutes and have a lifespan of 20 years, a major advantage over the two to four hours of charging time needed for conventional graphite-anode-based batteries, Largan said in a
Taiwan is one of the first countries to benefit from the artificial intelligence (AI) boom, but because that is largely down to a single company it also represents a risk, former Google Taiwan managing director Chien Lee-feng (簡立峰) said at an AI forum in Taipei yesterday. Speaking at the forum on how generative AI can generate possibilities for all walks of life, Chien said Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) — currently among the world’s 10 most-valuable companies due to continued optimism about AI — ensures Taiwan is one of the economies to benefit most from AI. “This is because AI is