Who’s going to buy a piece of Delphi?
TEXT OF STORY
Stacey Vanek-Smith: General Motors is expected to emerge from bankruptcy today, just 40 days after it filed for Chapter 11. GM sloughed its debts off to “old General Motors” while selling all of its most valuable assets to the “new” General Motors, which is majority owned by the U.S. government. GM CEO Fritz Henderson is expected to announce more job cuts for GM later this morning.
GM isn’t the only company trying to wrap up a bankruptcy this week. Auto parts-maker Delphi is trying to sell assets. Alisa Roth reports.
Alisa Roth: Billionaire investor Wilbur Ross is supposedly interested. Ditto for Carl Icahn, and he’s actually bid on Delphi before. Chinese firms have already bought some of the company, and are said to want more.
But hardly anybody’s buying cars right now, so hardly anybody’s making them. Gregg Lemos-Stein tracks parts-makers at Standard and Poors. He says there are just too many companies out there making parts.
Gregg Lemos-Stein: At the level of sales we’re seeing, there’s a lot of unused capacity in almost every area of the auto supplier space.
But business will get better eventually.
Kimberly Rodriguez works in the auto division at Grant Thornton. She says when people do start buying cars again, then manufacturers will need parts.
Kimberly Rodriguez: So investing in auto right now, if you can pick the right player, those make pretty compelling investments right now.
And she thinks any company that can make it through the current shakeout will be a survivor.
If you’re interested, bids are due today. But you’ll have to beat the $3.6 billion deal offered by a private equity firm.
In New York, I’m Alisa Roth for Marketplace.
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