Chrysler's lack of cars

yep its all thanks to Cerberus

Is there a single industry private equity, hedgies and investment bankers haven't ruined?

rob wrote:

Cerberus is known for buying, cutting up, and selling. marchione was really surprised there were no new models in the pipeline when he took over. he also found about half the engineers gone.

After Daimler was done with them, there wasn't much left for Cerberus. I'll grant that Cerberus continued the destruction, but I'd rank the two about even for what they did to Chrysler. The real mystery to me is how Cerberus so completely failed to do their homework, and didn't understand they were just getting the empty shell of an automobile company.

oh yeah Mercedes was toxic to em' too. good luck to Nissan/Renault

Cerberus isn't the only vulture capital firm out there.

rob wrote:

That Cerberus buys, chops, and sells is a claim I've heard many times, but have yet to see substantiated. The did sell a bunch of Albertson's after they got it, but still own many of the stores. What are examples of companies they've turned as claimed? I don't regard Chrysler as an example, since they bought, lost their shirts, and gave away the whole mess as one big unit (at, least, I haven't heard about a lot of assets being sold off first).

So true, Fortress bought the very profitable Intrawest Co. (Whistler Ski Hill+). Fortress borrowed a huge amount, now are several months in default on a very large loan and are in the process of selling the company off in pieces. As long as they get a good gain out of it for their investors, they don't care what happens to the companies they destroy.