Buried in this morning’s Detroit News article on White House support (maybe) for additional bailout bucks for Detroit: news that Chrysler has filed an application with the Department of Energy (DOE) to secure a share of the $25b federal no to low-interest retooling loan program. Showing the reportorial sympathies for which his paper is justifiably known (at least in these parts), the News’ David Shepardson wrote that “it was not clear how much the automaker requested.” In fact, Chrysler is refusing to release this information. I just got off the blower with Shawn Morgan. The ChryCo spinmeister said her employer has “no plans to release the information.” In fact, Chrysler has specifically asked the DOE to keep the information confidential. When quizzed for an explanation, you know, being that it’s taxpayer money involved an all, Morgan claimed the amount of money requested constitutes “competitive information.” Chrysler’s secrecy is hardly a surprise, given that the ailing American automaker’s owned by the Kremlin-like Cerberus private equity group. Still, it IS our money (for now). Needless to say, TTAC’s putting in a call to the DOE.
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Inquiring minds would like to know wit whom Chrysler is competing? They haven’t sold 10 cars this year!
The sooner Cerberus goes away the better…….
FOIA, FOIA, FOIA!
Considering the stipulations on that money, I can’t wait to see what you uncover about this. I figure the big dog is intending to use it for a little last-minute sprucing in anticipation of a long-awaited buyer.
BTW, Autoblog reports that Hyundai has given an official “no dice” to any role they may have played in the carve-up.
They probably asked for all of the money. Just a guess…
In the application instructions, the DOE said that if an applying company felt that confidential business information was being submitted, a second copy of the application should be submitted with the confidential information blacked out. So there should be at least one public copy of the application out there, even if it doesn’t prove to be very enlightening. That’s the problem with allowing a business to decide what’s confidential when dealing with the government; suddenly EVERYTHING is proprietary. However, at the very least, the amount applied for should be public, but who knows.
In my opinion a private equity company should get ZERO, especially when they have the money elsewere to “save” the company. The hedge fund boy should “eat it” on this one.