GM Says Will Go Bust in Days Without New Bailout [Financial Times]

Pig extorting ever more Bailout Heroin

GM Says Will Go Bust in Days Without New Bailout [Financial Times]

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General Motors has warned that billions of dollars in government aid may not prevent it from running out of cash if vehicle sales do not improve soon.

In a regulatory filing, GM, which was overtaken by Toyota as the world?s biggest carmaker last year, underlined the magnitude of its liquidity crisis by warning that it cannot afford to repay a $1bn bond maturing on June 1. The bond is part of $27bn in unsecured debt that GM is seeking to restructure through a debt-for-equity exchange.

Bondholders? advisers were due to meet on Thursday afternoon with the US government task force overseeing GM?s restructuring. They were ex-pected to ask for a guarantee on new securities that GM would issue as part of its debt restructuring.

GM?s filing repeatedly raises the spectre of a possible bankruptcy filing, in spite of warnings that such a move would be costly and could do irreparable harm to its image in the marketplace.

Deloitte & Touche, GM?s auditors, have expressed ?substantial doubt? about its ability to continue as a going concern, based on continued operating losses, negative shareholders? equity and the inability to generate sufficient cash flow.

The carmaker disclosed that its liquidity fell below the levels required to run its business before it began receiving emergency loans from the government last December.

It has so far received $13.4bn from Washington and has applied for another $16.6bn. It has also assumed that it will receive about $6bn from foreign governments, including the UK, Germany, Canada, Sweden and Thailand.

Even so, the filing warns that ?our efforts to continue to maintain adequate liquidity will be very challenging given the current business environment and the immediate working capital requirements of the viability plan required by the US Treasury loan agreement. Moreover, even if our liquidity enhancing actions are successfully implemented, their full effect will not be realised until later in 2009.?

Maintaining adequate liquidity in coming months will depend on ?the volume and quality of vehicle sales, the continuing curtailment of operating expenses and capital spending, the availability of funding under?federal government programs and the completion of some of our planned asset sales?.

US car and light-truck sales have recently fallen well short of the levels assumed in the viability plan. The plan is based on a total market of 10.5m units this year, rising to 12.5m in 2010. Sales in January and February were running at an annual rate of 9.3m.

One analyst said on Thursday that GM?s assumption of a continuing 20 per cent market share was also unrealistic. ?It?s not viable,? he said. ?This whole thing has become a political issue.?

GM said that a default on June?s bond repayment ?could also trigger cross defaults in other outstanding debt, which would potentially require us to seek relief through a (bankruptcy) filing?.

The bond-restructuring talks are taking place in tandem with negotiations with the United Auto Workers union over GM?s proposal to pay half of its contribution to a union-managed healthcare fund in the form of stock rather than cash.

?It?s kind of tricky because the bondholders and the UAW are looking back and forth at each other?, one person familiar with the negotiations said .

GM shares fell 15 per cent to $1.86.

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Jim Higgins
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