The problem with one trick ponies is that they get old quickly. It appears that the present administration’s one trick pony is short-term gains at the expense of long-term credibility. So, we should barely be surprised when, true to form, precisely the investors needed to get the PPIP program off the ground are savaged from the bully pulpit and bullied by a natty puppet.
Hedge fund manager George Schultze says he may avoid lending to any more unionized companies after being burned by President Barack Obama in Chrysler LLC’s bankruptcy.
Obama put Chrysler under court protection on April 30 after lenders balked at a proposal giving them about 29 cents on the dollar for their $6.9 billion in debt. The investors said the president’s plan favored a union retiree medical fund whose claims ranked behind them for repayment. It was offered a 55 percent equity stake in the automaker.
Pacific Investment Management Co., Barclays Capital and Fridson Investment Advisors have joined Schultze Asset Management LLC in saying lenders may be unwilling to back unionized companies with underfunded pension and medical obligations, such as airlines and auto-industry suppliers, because Chrysler’s creditors failed to block Obama’s move. The reluctance may put additional pressure on borrowers seeking capital in the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression.
“Lenders will have to figure out how to price this risk,” Schultze, 39, said in a telephone interview from his office in Purchase, New York. “The obvious one is: Don’t lend to a company with big legacy liabilities or demand a much higher rate of interest because you may be leapfrogged in a bankruptcy.”
Since we have debunked Capitalism, we are sure that would never happen.
Fund Managers Burned by Obama Now Say They Are Wary [Bloomberg]
Well I for one am totally shocked at this news.
Karl Marx
Don’t blame the government for doing something, just adapt your pricing and move on. The last transaction you can complain about the gov, the next one you can’t.
@2: that’s easy for you to say. But the borrowers will want you to give them rates and terms as a senior or sub lender, not as an equity player.
The bigger issue is that the unions and companies will howl about Wall St. “gouging” them, and look at the bonuses they pay themselves, etc. etc.
Easier for a lender just to walk away and say screw it.
@2, exactly, fool me once, shame on..shame on you, fool me twice..you can’t get fooled again!
@4 Yes you can – meet the new boss same as the old boss…
Bess, What is up with Jefferies….twice the normal options volume and takeover rumors abbound
How exactly does one go about learning a “lesson” from one precedent when the rules will simply be re-written at the next politically opportune time?
The real takeaway here is that you should price in a good deal of freakyass political risk into ANYTHING AND EVERYTHING you’re putting money into.
@6- no one gives a shit about jefferies.
@8
Aren’t you late for class? hurry up
PS – Dealbreaker has some seriously hilarious banner adds. Obama just passed another mortgage bill? Time for the ladies to dance!
I am analyst at Jefferies, what is options volume?
Don’t you all f’ing understand!!! We need the Govt to save us from ourselves.
Ok, so these guys won’t lend, the Gov’t will just force them and/or someone else to, one way or another.
What was that Mr Shultze? You want your Carry taxed at 95%? I think we can make that happen, unless of course…
Of course, Schultze feels badly about this, he’s a swell guy and he would never do anything to screw the little guy in a bankruptcy case. http://www.boston.com/business/ticker/2008/12/are_hackers_pla.html
I wouldn’t lend to loss-leviathan like Chrysler if Ronald Reagan’s ghost were in office.
“They sowed the wind and now they are going to reap the whirlwind.” – Harris
Maybe this will mean the death of the unions?
- always looking for the silver lining
Every company will be a union company once they pass card check. That means everyone will know that you were the guy/gal who didn’t want the union, since it won’t be done by secret ballot. So, if you vote against the union, what is to stop them from visiting you at home and “convincing” you to change your vote? So, unions, which GWB could have easily and handily killed, will instead, be ubiquitous and inescapable. It seems payback is rich for the unions.
Lending to a unionized company was a risky (and quite possibly stupid) proposition even before Chrysler’s BK nonsense. General rule for comparative analysis of union and nonunion business prospects: Unions = lack of operational and financial flexibility + decreased/reduced productivity + increased costs = inevitable bankruptcy.
That said, clearly the only institution with the requisite experience and rich history of market discipline necessary to effectively price such default risk is the US government. I mean just look at how well it’s managing social security and Medicare. The government becoming the lender of last resort for failing companies as a direct result of unapologetically shafting anyone dumb enough to have provided capital to such businesses in the first place (in favor of the same unions that have run said companies into the ground to begin with while simultaneously filling the Dem’s election coffers) thereby discouraging any future loans to these businesses certainly sounds like a desirable outcome to me**
** Notwithstanding my strong preference for any one of several hundred alternative uses of my tax dollars including improving our educational infrastructure, healthcare reform, national defense, scientific research……or (GASP!) letting me actually keep my money and invest it as I choose (perhaps in nonunion companies that are well-managed and thus unlikely to find themselves back attempting to fend of yet another bankruptcy ten years from now.
Get down,
HH
“Don’t lend to a company with big legacy liabilities …”
Shouldn’t that already be your policy irrespective of what a President thinks of your property rights? To those of you who thought that Obama would take care of secured seniors first, Don’t look directly at his glowing halo in the future, eh. To those of you who think that Obama is gonna make us socialist, just go back to listening to Limbaugh now.
20 – you’re confusing future tense and past tense.
@21
20 here
Yes that’s true. Let me rephrase the first statement.
I said:
Shouldn’t that already be your policy irrespective of your property rights?
I should have said:
Shouldn’t that have already been your policy irrespective of what a President thought of your property rights?
I must have been blinded by the halo of my Obama Crucifix.
Was the protection of the absolute priority rule somehow taken away from the secured creditors?
@23
Your a quick one aren’t you?
@24 – they consented to their treatment, so the absolute priority rule does not apply. Eat a dick.
@25 Consent under duress does not count. Moron.
@24
consent when O holds the marionette strings of most creditors does not count either
I don’t think these (small minority) lenders hedged properly and now they are bitching and moaning that their gamble didn’t pay out the way they thought it would. From what I know it looks like it was not difficult to outsmart that small group.