The US Treasury Department said on Monday it would lose US$1.6 billion on a loan made to Chrysler early last year.
Taxpayer losses from bailing out Chrysler and General Motors (GM) are expected to rise as high as US$34 billion, congressional auditors have said.
Treasury said on Monday that Chrysler repaid US$1.9 billion of a US$4 billion loan, which was extended before the company filed for Chapter 11. The government hopes to get another US$500 million from the company that emerged from bankruptcy, Chrysler Group LLC.
Treasury officials said the government had no plans to boost its stake in the new Chrysler to cover those losses. It also acknowledged another US$1.9 billion in potential losses from a separate loan that had been made to the company that went through bankruptcy proceedings. It indicated slim hopes of recouping much if anything from that separate US$1.9 billion loan.
The original US$4 billion loan was made in January last year, when the George W. Bush administration was scrambling to rescue Chrysler, GM and their auto financing arms.
The Congressional Budget Office estimated in March that the government’s US$85 billion bailout of the automakers would cost taxpayers US$34 billion.
Much of it will depend on how much the government recovers from its eventual sale of nearly 61 percent of GM and about 10 percent of Chrysler.
GM has said it could conduct a public stock offering later this year. Chrysler officials have said a public stock offering is not likely before next year.
The Treasury Department made the announcement about the loss from Chrysler on a day when GM reported its first quarterly profit in nearly three years. That moved GM closer to a stock offering that would repay at least part of the US$43 billion it owes the government.
Chrysler Holding is the parent company of the old Chrysler. It is owned by private equity firm Cerberus Capital Management. Cerberus bought Chrysler from Daimler AG in 2007.
Chrysler came close to running out of money at the end of 2008, so the US government stepped in, authorizing US$15.5 billion in aid and appointing Fiat SpA to run the new Chrysler after it emerged from bankruptcy protection. The old Chrysler’s assets, along with its finance arm, became Chrysler Holding.
Treasury said it has received repayments of US$3.9 billion to date, including the US$1.9 billion repayment and a US$1.5 billion loan paid off by Chrysler Financial. Chrysler also assumed US$500 million of Old Chrysler’s debt, reducing the debt to the government.
EXPRESSING GRATITUDE: Without its Taiwanese partners which are ‘working around the clock,’ Nvidia could not meet AI demand, CEO Jensen Huang said Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) and US-based artificial intelligence (AI) chip designer Nvidia Corp have partnered with each other on silicon photonics development, Nvidia founder and CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) said. Speaking with reporters after he met with TSMC chairman C.C. Wei (魏哲家) in Taipei on Friday, Huang said his company was working with the world’s largest contract chipmaker on silicon photonics, but admitted it was unlikely for the cooperation to yield results any time soon, and both sides would need several years to achieve concrete outcomes. To have a stake in the silicon photonics supply chain, TSMC and
‘DETERRENT’: US national security adviser-designate Mike Waltz said that he wants to speed up deliveries of weapons purchased by Taiwan to deter threats from China US president-elect Donald Trump’s nominee for US secretary of defense, Pete Hegseth, affirmed his commitment to peace in the Taiwan Strait during his confirmation hearing in Washington on Tuesday. Hegseth called China “the most comprehensive and serious challenge to US national security” and said that he would aim to limit Beijing’s expansion in the Indo-Pacific region, Voice of America reported. He would also adhere to long-standing policies to prevent miscalculations, Hegseth added. The US Senate Armed Services Committee hearing was the first for a nominee of Trump’s incoming Cabinet, and questions mostly focused on whether he was fit for the
IDENTITY: Compared with other platforms, TikTok’s algorithm pushes a ‘disproportionately high ratio’ of pro-China content, a study has found Young Taiwanese are increasingly consuming Chinese content on TikTok, which is changing their views on identity and making them less resistant toward China, researchers and politicians were cited as saying by foreign media. Asked to suggest the best survival strategy for a small country facing a powerful neighbor, students at National Chia-Yi Girls’ Senior High School said “Taiwan must do everything to avoid provoking China into attacking it,” the Financial Times wrote on Friday. Young Taiwanese between the ages of 20 and 24 in the past were the group who most strongly espoused a Taiwanese identity, but that is no longer
A magnitude 6.4 earthquake and several aftershocks battered southern Taiwan early this morning, causing houses and roads to collapse and leaving dozens injured and 50 people isolated in their village. A total of 26 people were reported injured and sent to hospitals due to the earthquake as of late this morning, according to the latest Ministry of Health and Welfare figures. In Sising Village (西興) of Chiayi County's Dapu Township (大埔), the location of the quake's epicenter, severe damage was seen and roads entering the village were blocked, isolating about 50 villagers. Another eight people who were originally trapped inside buildings in Tainan
RSS