Obama mulling 'prepackaged deal'

New York: President-Elect Barack Obama's transition team is exploring a swift, prepackaged bankruptcy for automakers as a possible solution to the industry's financial crisis, according to a person familiar with the matter.

Obama's team has already contacted at least one bankruptcy-law firm to say that Daniel Tarullo, a professor at Georgetown University's law school who heads Obama's econ-omic policy working group, would call to discuss the workings of a so-called prepack, according to this person.

US lawmakers on Thursday postponed until Dec-ember a vote on whether to give General Motors Corp, Ford Motor Co and Chrysler a $25 billion (Dh91.95 billion) bailout as an alternative.

"It creates the environment to deal with GM's problems but limits government financial commitment," said bankruptcy lawyer Mark Bane of Ropes & Gray in New York.

Tarullo referred the matter to the transition team press office. Team spokeswoman Stephanie Cutter said, "We have not put out anything specific for the auto industry except that something needs to be done immediately."

GM, the largest US automaker, said it might run out of cash as early as the end of the year and that the risk was even greater by mid-2009.

GM Chief Executive Officer Rick Wagoner said this week GM would have to liquidate if it went into bankruptcy.

The automaker probably has weeks rather than months left before it runs out of money unless it gets federal aid, Jerome York, an adviser to billionaire Kirk Kerkorian and a former GM board member, told Bloomberg Television yesterday.

How prepacks work

In a prepackaged bank-ruptcy, an automaker would go into court with financing in hand after reaching agreement with lenders, workers and suppliers on what each would give up and on the business plan to be followed.

The process might take six to 12 months, compared with two to five years if the automakers followed an ordinary Chapter 11 proceeding and worked out agreements under a judge's supervision, Bane said.

Automakers would have to depend on government financing to restructure in bankruptcy court and probably couldn't attract private loans until they were ready to emerge from the process, Bane said.

Officials of the three automakers told members of Congress this week that they had studied a pre-arranged bankruptcy, championed by Republican lawmakers such as Senator Bob Corker of Tennessee, before dismissing the idea as unworkable.

"We have looked at all aspects, whether it's a prepackage, whether it's prenegotiated," Chrysler CEO Robert Nardelli told a Senate committee on Nov-ember 18.

The options are all "more negative" than restructuring as a condition of receiving federal aid, Nardelli said.

Wagoner and Alan Mulally, CEO of Dearborn, Michigan-based Ford, also said under congressional questioning that their companies had studied and rejected the idea of reorganising under court protection.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said on Thursday that Democrats reject bankruptcy as an option.

In or out of court, automakers will have to submit a viable business plan to gain government funds, Peter Peterson, senior chairman of Blackstone Group LP, said in an interview.

"Unless they can show us the plan, we can't show them the money," Pelosi said yesterday.

GM, Ford and Chrysler must submit viability plans by December 2, and Cong-ress would meet the week of December 8 to consider aid, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said yesterday.

Congress must see accountability from auto-makers, Pelosi said.

The congressional deadlock was triggered by disagreement over how to pay for the $25 billion the Big Three automakers are seeking.

Democrats' position

Democratic leaders have demanded that the recently approved $700 billion bank-rescue fund be tapped for the auto aid. Their plan stalled with opposition from Republicans and President George W. Bush's administration.

The Bush administration joined Levin, Missouri Republican Senator Christopher Bond and others pushing the alternative that would tap the fuel-efficiency loans instead.

"There are other alternatives to a bridge loan for automakers, Senate Financial Services Chairman Christopher Dodd, a Connecticut Democrat, told reporters yesterday. "The prepackaged bankruptcy is not an idea without constituency here."

A GM bankruptcy is the "only way" for the biggest US automaker to end union costs that make it uncompetitive, Republican Senator James DeMint of South Carolina said in an interview on Bloomberg Radio.

"I look at the Republicans that say it shouldn't be saved and should be in Chapter 11, and I agree with that," said James Harris, president of Seneca Financial Group Inc, a restructuring advisory firm in New York.

"I look at the Democrats that say these businesses are very important to the economy, and I agree with that, so the logical step is a prepack, with some government financing," he said.