You may recall Phil as one of our Best and Brightest, a forensic accounting gumshoe hot on the trail of who owns Chrysler. You know, the company that sucked-up $3b of your tax money, looking for $4b more. And the rest (DOE loans and whatnot). Well, Phil outed Franklin Templeton Investments as one of the firms holding Cerberus CNG Investor I – III paper. Phil and I wanted to know a few things about Franklin’s folly. Why did they list the funds under “Consumer Credit” in their annual report? What’s with the Cerberus’ bonds paying 12 percent by 2014? So Phil called Big Ben. And . . . nothing. Despite a promise to answer his questions. So Phil’s not a happy camper. Not at all.
E-mailed SEC Enforcement. I’m really tired of this crap. You and I shouldn’t have to play Woodward and Bernstein to find out about these funds. I complained about the report and Cerberus’ obfuscation of the information. I deal with really small Broker/Dealer firms that may go under because of all of the regulations thrown at them, yet those same useless regs are doing nothing to stop the big guys from doing what they want. One of the little guys would have been toast by now for what’s in (or not in) that Franklin statement. What if we were trying to decide whether to put your retirement into that fund. Oh Robert, don’t worry—I don’t see any failed automaker investments in their portfolio—go ahead and invest. This is not the way it should be. Even if I’m wrong, where’s the data to prove I’m wrong? Why is it hidden and missing? No wonder Madoff got away with what he was doing for so long.
Meanwhile, a tipster’s listed the original investors in Chrysler [via Cerberus]:
JP Morgan, Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs (Bear but they are dead) and Citigroup as a syndicate lent Cerberus $12 billion to make this deal, I would guess they are stuck with a lot of it.
The whole notion behind having to play detective begins to reveal how crooks operate from behind the tie, or not. It’s a shell game to them until someone starts asking questions or someone starts losing money.
Quite fascinating…and scary. Thanks for working towards the truth. Curious that the story of Cerberus owning Chrysler hasn’t made more headlines. I guess people are just fatigued to hear the bailout stories.
I pulled all of my 401k monies out of the stock market over two years ago, realizing that 14,000 was unsustainable given the fact that our whole system was based upon the ponzi scheme that is fiat money. It’s only worth what we think it is worth – it is backed by nothing more concrete than a bankrupt government.
I mean that in every possible way; morally bankrupt, fiscally bankrupt and spritually bankrupt.
And it is not just the United States Government, either.
If you have a few minutes, read for yourself…
Today’s article “If you think it’s been bad so far” (2/12/2009) is here
http://www.independencejournal.com/today.htm
Of course, Friday, it’ll show the current article (but the 2/12/09 issue will be there – scroll down)
Is TTAC seriously the first to concretely list this information? All of the big banks are involved with Cerberus?
10-4
Wow, just wow.
Keep at it, Gents. We are counting on you!
I guess I don’t get it. (haven’t had my coffee yet). But don’t ALL automakers have several investors, bondholders, etc? And won’t the “list” look pretty similar for each company? I think it would. Thus, the whole point of the “bailout” (technically, it’s a loan) was to protect not only the companies, but all who are associated with them downstream? Wouldn’t it make sense that it would include investors who fund annuities, pensions, etc.? I would think so, or what would be the point? I don’t think the money was only for saving the jobs & benefits of the primary employees of the Big 2.27, but to stave off the supposed domino effect if these companies had to liquidate, and that would include protecting it’s investors who invest on behalf of groups of regular peeps like you and me. At least, I would hope that that was the reasoning, but hey, you never know? I’m against the loans, wished for C11, but I think these conspiratorial articles might be barking up the wrong tree. Hey, ACORN is going to get just as much money as CHRYCO, and we all know what THEY do…
RF and Phil,
Great series of editorials. Keep it up and keep putting Cerberus’s feet to the fire til you get answers.
If your tipster’s right this sorta kinda makes me an indirect part owner of Chrysler. Heh, just what I always wanted…
[my tears wet the keyboard before me since I don’t drink beer.]
The banksters have their feet in all the messes. It’s a mess. But, outside of Detroit, does anyone really care about Chrysler? I mean, when you have massive job loss in NYC, but the media won’t even cover that …!
The hedge fund rat bastards that are Cerberus should have never gotten a cent being a private equity group. Ya invest your money, you take your chances. That’s what I did when I went in business for myself. If I lost my ass, you can be sure the tax payers wouldn’t have bailed me out or given me a “bridge loan”. My stocks have gone down, no bail out, the same should apply to the investors that put money into the 3 headed dog directly or indirectly.
Dangerous Dave, Cerberus did not get any money from the bailout (“bridge loan”). The money went to Chrysler for operating funds, not to Cerberus. Just like the shareholders of GM did not get any money from the bailout. The money went to GM for operating funds, not to GM’s shareholders.
Cerberus does get some benefit indirectly from the bailout funds. And Cerberus will benefit if Chrysler returns to profitability. But that is not likely.
Unless a miracle happens, Cerberus has lost its investment in Chrysler. As you point out, they should.
I suppose my point was not complete. Cerberus should be providing funds to Chrysler, not me. If they don’t want to do it, let the chips fall where they may.
I see what you are saying. That makes sense.
Just speculation, but I think that is what Cerberus has done. Cerberus decided not to give Chrysler any more money, and left it to die. The government stepped in to save it. For political reasons, apparently.
Of course, Cerberus did lobby hard for the government funds for Chrysler. So maybe it has some way to benefit from this that I do not know about. If so, that would support your take on this whole fiasco.