With a week remaining for Chrysler LLC to clinch a deal with Italy’s Fiat, the US automaker is readying a bankruptcy plan but still focused on reaching an alliance with the support of the administration of US President Barack Obama, people with knowledge of the discussions said on Thursday.
Fiat, meanwhile, also emerged as a potential buyer for General Motors Corp’s (GM) Opel unit in a deal that would mark the Italian automaker’s emergence as a major global player with a role in the restructuring of two of Detroit’s sputtering carmakers.
Chrysler, which faces a government-imposed April 30 deadline to cement an alliance with Italy’s Fiat or face a cut off of its federal funding that could trigger its liquidation in bankruptcy, has been preparing for a Chapter 11 filing as a contingency, a person with direct knowledge of the plans said.
A US official said the focus for the automaker’s task force headed by former investment banker Steve Rattner was for brokering a Chrysler-Fiat deal even as it prepared for the alternative.
“In a negotiation like this, everything is speculation until there’s a deal,” the official said.
Separately, the head of the Canadian Auto Workers union said on Thursday he expected to have a cost-saving deal completed with Chrysler by yesterday morning.
Canada is also considering providing financing to both Chrysler and GM if the companies end up filing for bankruptcy, Industry Minister Tony Clement said.
GM said on Thursday it would slash production over the next three months.
Right-wing political scientist Laura Fernandez on Sunday won Costa Rica’s presidential election by a landslide, after promising to crack down on rising violence linked to the cocaine trade. Fernandez’s nearest rival, economist Alvaro Ramos, conceded defeat as results showed the ruling party far exceeding the threshold of 40 percent needed to avoid a runoff. With 94 percent of polling stations counted, the political heir of outgoing Costa Rican President Rodrigo Chaves had captured 48.3 percent of the vote compared with Ramos’ 33.4 percent, the Supreme Electoral Tribunal said. As soon as the first results were announced, members of Fernandez’s Sovereign People’s Party
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GROWING AMBITIONS: The scale and tempo of the operations show that the Strait has become the core theater for China to expand its security interests, the report said Chinese military aircraft incursions around Taiwan have surged nearly 15-fold over the past five years, according to a report released yesterday by the Democratic Progressive Party’s (DPP) Department of China Affairs. Sorties in the Taiwan Strait were previously irregular, totaling 380 in 2020, but have since evolved into routine operations, the report showed. “This demonstrates that the Taiwan Strait has become both the starting point and testing ground for Beijing’s expansionist ambitions,” it said. Driven by military expansionism, China is systematically pursuing actions aimed at altering the regional “status quo,” the department said, adding that Taiwan represents the most critical link in China’s
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