The US Department of the Treasury said on Thursday it reached an agreement to sell its remaining 6 percent equity stake in Chrysler to Italy’s Fiat in a deal that will net Washington US$560 million.
The proceeds of the deal include the sale of the US government’s interest in a United Auto Workers (UAW) healthcare trust fund, Treasury said in a mid-evening statement.
US President Barack Obama’s administration invested US$12.5 billion in Chrysler under the Troubled Asset Relief Program in 2009 as part of an auto industry bailout that eventually brought both Chrysler and General Motors Corp through bankruptcy court.
Photo: Reuters
After the transaction with Fiat, Treasury will have received about US$11.2 billion back in principal repayments, interest and canceled commitments from Chrysler.
“Treasury is unlikely to fully recover the difference of US$1.3 billion,” the statement said.
US Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said the administration bailout had enabled automakers to mount “one of the most -improbable turnarounds in recent history” that is now creating jobs as domestic automakers gain market share.
Fiat agreed to pay Treasury US$500 million for Treasury’s 98,461 shares of Chrysler. Treasury also had an option to buy shares held by the UAW retiree trust and Fiat agreed to buy that for US$75 million — with Treasury to get US$60 million and the government of Canada US$15 million.
The announcement of the deal with Fiat came on the eve of Obama’s scheduled visit to a Chrysler plant in Toledo, Ohio, where he is expected to tout the success of the auto bailout that saved US jobs and historic auto nameplates like Chrysler.
Treasury said that once the transaction is completed, it will have fully exited its investment in Chrysler. Since the 2007 to 2009 financial crisis ended, Treasury has been making every effort to sell off interests it acquired in industry as part of the rescue effort during those troubled years.
Before Thursday’s announcement, Fiat held a 46 percent interest in Chrysler. That will rise to 52 percent when the transaction is completed and thus give the Italian automaker majority control.
Fiat has made swift work toward that goal in the past six months after meeting certain performance targets and repaying its US$7.6 billion in loans owed to the US and Canada last week.
Taiwan’s exports soared 56 percent year-on-year to an all-time high of US$64.05 billion last month, propelled by surging global demand for artificial intelligence (AI), high-performance computing and cloud service infrastructure, the Ministry of Finance said yesterday. Department of Statistics Director-General Beatrice Tsai (蔡美娜) called the figure an unexpected upside surprise, citing a wave of technology orders from overseas customers alongside the usual year-end shopping season for technology products. Growth is likely to remain strong this month, she said, projecting a 40 percent to 45 percent expansion on an annual basis. The outperformance could prompt the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and
The demise of the coal industry left the US’ Appalachian region in tatters, with lost jobs, spoiled water and countless kilometers of abandoned underground mines. Now entrepreneurs are eyeing the rural region with ambitious visions to rebuild its economy by converting old mines into solar power systems and data centers that could help fuel the increasing power demands of the artificial intelligence (AI) boom. One such project is underway by a non-profit team calling itself Energy DELTA (Discovery, Education, Learning and Technology Accelerator) Lab, which is looking to develop energy sources on about 26,305 hectares of old coal land in
Netflix on Friday faced fierce criticism over its blockbuster deal to acquire Warner Bros Discovery. The streaming giant is already viewed as a pariah in some Hollywood circles, largely due to its reluctance to release content in theaters and its disruption of traditional industry practices. As Netflix emerged as the likely winning bidder for Warner Bros — the studio behind Casablanca, the Harry Potter movies and Friends — Hollywood’s elite launched an aggressive campaign against the acquisition. Titanic director James Cameron called the buyout a “disaster,” while a group of prominent producers are lobbying US Congress to oppose the deal,
Two Chinese chipmakers are attracting strong retail investor demand, buoyed by industry peer Moore Threads Technology Co’s (摩爾線程) stellar debut. The retail portion of MetaX Integrated Circuits (Shanghai) Co’s (上海沐曦) upcoming initial public offering (IPO) was 2,986 times oversubscribed on Friday, according to a filing. Meanwhile, Beijing Onmicro Electronics Co (北京昂瑞微), which makes radio frequency chips, was 2,899 times oversubscribed on Friday, its filing showed. The bids coincided with Moore Threads’ trading debut, which surged 425 percent on Friday after raising 8 billion yuan (US$1.13 billion) on bets that the company could emerge as a viable local competitor to Nvidia
RSS