The Politics of the GM-Chrysler Bankruptcies

By David Ruggles

During the recent Republican debate held in Mitt Romney’s home state of Michigan, the presidential hopeful was asked about the “rescue” of General Motors and Chrysler. The premise of the moderator’s question was that since the automakers are now doing well, did Romney “regret his opposition to the rescue?” Romney answered, “The government finally followed my advice,” referencing his November 2008 op-ed in The New York Times entitled, “Let Detroit Go Bankrupt.” [Click to read the full article.]

Despite the inflammatory headline, Romney’s article was temperate and well-reasoned. Some readers might have assumed that the “bankruptcy” Romney recommended was a Chapter 7 liquidation, but that was not the case. The piece was written in the context of events of the day, in particular the Detroit Three CEOs appearing before Congress to request a “bailout.” The initial request was for $25 billion in loans or loan guarantees. That appeal later grew to $35 billion, while the total investment necessary to do the job, which has largely been repaid or secured with stock, ballooned to $81 billion.

In his op-ed, Romney stated that it would be better if the two companies in question, GM and Chrysler, were allowed to go through a “managed, pre-structured bankruptcy to allow them to restructure themselves.” Without such a restructuring, but with a “bailout,” Romney argued, the companies would continue on their current unsustainable path and would ultimately have to liquidate. “But don’t ask Washington to give shareholders and bondholders a free pass — they bet on management and they lost,” Romney said in his piece.

Reached by telephone for this column, Steve Rattner, former chief of the Automotive Task Force, called Romney’s 2008 piece “prescient.” He praises Romney’s op-ed as “95% correct.” According to Rattner, the “Romney plan” was followed almost to the letter. The exception: there was “no debtor-in-possession financing available through private lenders, requiring the U.S. Treasury to fill that role,” he said. (Remember the financial system meltdown of 2008-9 – see the note at the bottom.)

After the “government finally took my advice” comment, though, Romney should have left it there. The Democrats seem to be trying to mischaracterize Romney’s stated position in the New York Times article by applying “liquidation” bankruptcy to Romney’s headline, instead of the reorganization he clearly recommended in the body of the column.

Even more confusing is that Romney himself currently seems to be mischaracterizing his own original position. Bloomberg writes: "In Michigan after Wednesday's Republican candidate debate, Mitt Romney defended his opposition to the government bailout that saved jobs in the tens of thousands at GM and Chrysler. (Again, see the note.) According to Romney, instead of asking the government to intervene, the companies should have entered into private sector bankruptcies immediately.”

Never one to waste an opportunity, former Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm, a Democrat, said in an interview with Bloomberg that “Romney's view was ‘a knife in the back’ to his home state."

Rattner, too, is puzzled. “I can’t understand how Romney can go from being so out in front of the auto company reorganizations to disavowing his almost perfect original position. In fact, GM CEO Rick Wagoner stubbornly refused to consider Chapter 11 bankruptcy for GM and had to be removed for the reorganization to go forward.”

By the time Pres. Barack Obama was inaugurated, the Bush administration had already advanced $17.4 billion in “bridge loans” from the Troubled Asset Relief Program to the two ailing automakers. Congress had turned down a “bailout” package despite Vice Pres. Dick Cheney admonishing his fellow Republicans, “Do you want to be known as the party of Hoover forever?”

Perhaps Romney is criticizing the Bush administration for the “bridge loans,” but last anyone checked, George W. Bush is not running for President again.

What is clear is that the rescue of the auto industry will be a hot topic in the upcoming 2012 elections. The President and the Democrats will be taking credit for what so far seems to be a good move, despite flaws in the “rescue’s” execution. The Republicans seem determined to claim that the “rescue” was a “bailout” and shouldn’t have been done.

In Republican frontrunner Romney’s case, he seems to be having a difficult time making up his mind what he thinks. His camp did not respond to a request for clarification of his position in advance of this column.

David Ruggles has spent his career in every phase of the retail side of the auto business, new and used, sales and management, including consulting and training in both the U.S. & Japan. Ruggles has been a dealer for Mercedes-Benz, Chrysler, Dodge, GMC, Ford, Mazda, and Subaru, and has consulted for one of the world’s largest privately owned Toyota dealer groups located in Japan. He blogs at autosandeconomics.blogspot.com and writes regular columns for several publications.

Note: on this blog Ruggles and Smitka repeatedly examined this issue during 2008-9, arguing that, due to the interlinked nature of the supply chain, made visible in the aftershocks to the industry of the "3/11" Tohoku earthquake, the liquidation of GM would have forced suppliers and hence Toyota, Honda and the rest of manufacturing to close. Without inventory, dealers would have followed, while even repairs on existing vehicles would have become difficult because spare parts production would also have shut down. Remember, there was no private financing to handle normal Chapter 11 bankruptcy – the only alternative would have been immediate liquidation.

The Resilient U.S. Economy

If the stock market is the pulse of the American economy, the outlook might be better than expected.

In a conversation I had with noted Wall Street analyst and international trader James Vena, he asked a very interesting question: “Where was the Dow a year ago?” Answer: About 12,000. “And where is the Dow today?” About 12,000.

Vena pointed out that the economy has withstood some serious challenges this year, including:

• A debt crisis that would threaten the European economy and the Euro currency itself.
• A significant cheapening of the U. S. dollar.
• A disruption in oil supply from Libya caused by a series of uprisings in the Middle East and a corresponding spike in fuel prices.
• An earthquake and tsunami in Japan that would disrupt world trade including components for global auto production.
• Flooding in Southeast Asia that further disrupts the global supply chain.
• An attempt by a U.S. political party to hold a lifting of the country’s debt ceiling resulting in a lowering of the credit rating.
• The bankruptcy of a major legacy U.S. airline.
• Continuing U.S. housing foreclosures and a further decline in home values.

The U.S. economy is far from out of the woods. But it has withstood a serious assault in the past year and not slipped into a double-dip recession. Will the upcoming election year bring about new challenges, or will the economy get a break?

Mike Smitka as devil's advocate: but it's housing prices that are weighing down household balance sheets, not the stock market. Until you get into fairly high incomes shareholdings are primarily indirect, through retirement plans -- are Americans really going to cut back on their contributions further in order to buy a new car???? And sitting at 9%-plus unemployment for 2 years is "resilient"?

The Ford-GM Stock Equation

As with the economy, the stock market will continue to evolve. So far this year, though, auto stocks, specifically, have hit some hard times.

Surprising to many is the fact that the stock of General Motors has dropped to about $21 per share from its $35-per-share post-IPO high a year ago. Even more surprising is that Ford’s stock has dropped to about $11 per share from $18 in the same time frame. This decline, despite impressive sales gains and profits, and improved fixed costs, now that both companies' VEBAs have capped legacy costs while their UAW contracts have removed the threat of strikes and wage hikes.

Of course, in the past year there have been headwinds: high oil prices, the Japanese tsunami, and the debt crisis debacle, to name a few. Both companies have taken hits on quality, with GM experiencing bad PR due to some Chevy Volts that burst into flames during crash testing and Ford being slammed in a J.D. Power quality survey.

Despite these obstacles, the two companies have stood firm. GM announced the reopening of the old Saturn plant in Spring Hill, Tenn., to build the Chevy Equinox. Both companies continue to increase volume, marketshare, and profits. They have both been reducing incentives while maintaining sales momentum.

Once GM’s stock price gets to a certain level, expect the Treasury Department to sell quantities of the taxpayer’s GM stock. The outcome: a somewhat depressed price.

So what is your prognostication for the upcoming year? Buy? Sell? Hold?

GM recently began paying a dividend on preferred stock while Ford just announced a 5 cent per quarter dividend, its first since 2006.

David Ruggles has spent his career in every phase of the retail side of the auto business, new and used, sales and management, including consulting and training in both the U.S. & Japan. Ruggles has been a dealer for Mercedes-Benz, Chrysler, Dodge, GMC, Ford, Mazda, and Subaru, and has consulted for one of the world’s largest privately owned Toyota dealer groups located in Japan. He blogs here at blogspot and writes regular columns for several publications.

Bob Lutz - "Car Guys versus Bean Counters" Book Review

"Car Guys vs Bean Counters"
The Battle for the Soul of American Business
By Bob Lutz

Taxpayers, The Auto Bailouts, and Politics

Last November, General Motors’ IPO set a record for money raised at 20.1 billion dollars. This is all money returned to the taxpayers’ Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP). The success of the IPO was not only driven by new investors, but also by stockholders and lenders who had been “stiffed” in GM’s Chapter 11 bankruptcy of 2009. The company recently reported its highest quarterly profit in more than a decade, helped by demand for fuel-efficient cars and a big gain from selling its stake in its former auto parts business. The biggest U.S. automaker said Thursday that it earned $3.2 billion, or $1.77 per share, in the first quarter. It was a great start for the year considering the spike in U.S. gasoline prices, a trend that would have sunk the company just a few years ago when it relied on gas-guzzling pickups and SUVs for profits. Earnings will accelerate if U.S. auto sales continue to creep back up toward the 15-million to 17-million vehicle-per-year sales rates the U.S. industry last saw in 2007.
"GM is making a lot of money at ‘depression levels’ of sales. As the market improves it should make even more money." said Dave Cole, chairman emeritus of the Center for Automotive Research.
The U.S. Treasury will remain GM's largest shareholder for now. It will likely take several years to unload the entire stake to keep from diluting its stock price. Taxpayers still own about 33% of GM shares. The stock price will need to rise to about $48.00 for the U.S. government to break even on its follow-on stock sales. At $48 per share, GM would have a market value of more than $90 billion.
Chrysler Corporation paid back more than 7.5 billion in loans to the American and Canadian governments in May. Chrysler had until 2017 to repay the loans, so this was six years ahead of schedule. The company has now paid back most of the loan money that saved it from going under. The government loans were high interest loans, about which Fiat/Chrysler Sergio Marchionne recently opined. Instead of merely complaining about “loan shark rates,” the company did something about it. The high interest on the U.S. Government loans certainly induced Chrysler’s partner FIAT to borrow the money to pay off the bulk of Chrysler’s outstanding government loans. Chrysler raised just over 3 billion through a bond sale and took out 3 billion in lower interest loans to come up with the money to pay back the government loans. This will save more than $300 million a year, according to the company.
The automaker still owes taxpayers about $2 billion. Treasury could get most of that back by selling its remaining 8.6 percent stake in the company, which it was given in exchange for the loans. Chrysler’s IPO has yet to be scheduled but FIAT just announced it is increasing its stake in Chrysler to 51% from the current 46% in advance of the upcoming IPO. As Marchionne recently observed, “The longer we wait, the more it costs,” referring to FIAT’s intention to buy shares from the U.S. Treasury.”
Chrysler’s recent earnings have also been strong, despite a market impacted by high fuel prices and a weak, but recovering, economy. Both companies stand to do extremely well as the economy improves and the SAAR rises to recent historical levels.
Both companies have announced initiatives to increase production and rehire thousands of workers. Chrysler alone has added more than 8,000 jobs since its bankruptcy.
In the meantime, Ford continues to do well in the still recovering economy despite having to bear the weight of interest on debt it accumulated to ride out the economic storm without having to seek taxpayer involvement. Ford has benefited from union concessions it received to maintain parity with its competitors.
The auto industry bailout, financed through the Bush Administration’s TARP program, spared the GM, Chrysler, AND Ford from liquidation and saved hundreds of thousands of manufacturing jobs at those companies and its suppliers.
To add perspective, had either company been forced into liquidation, the cost dropped on the taxpayers in the form of the Federal Pension Benefit Guarantee Fund would have been at least $38 billion. This in addition to the damage that would have been done to the North American industrial base, including military procurement at a time of two wars.
While Americans have been known to pile on “losers,” failures, and those who make mistakes, they love “redemption.” While there are those who refuse to buy a GM or Chrysler vehicle OR buy their stock because they were bailed out by the government, the companies’ strong sales and profit results indicate that, on balance, they are achieving a large measure redemption. The popularity of Chrysler’s “Made in Detroit” advertising campaign is further evidence.
In the meantime, the 2012 election campaign is getting underway and yes, it looks like the bailout of the auto industry could end up being one of many points of debate. One can expect Democrats to replay videos of Republicans who opposed the bailouts ad nausea. Already an ad paid for by the Democratic National Committee recaps positions taken by Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich, and Tim Pawlenty.
Romney takes a significant hit in the ad. The former Massachusetts governor, whose father was governor of Michigan as well as the top executive at American Motors is being reminded of the hard-lined position he took in a 2008 New York Times Op Ed, “Let Detroit Go Bankrupt.” Yet Romney and others continue to use opposition to the bailouts as a campaign point, advocating a free-market system free of bailouts and subsidies. They maintain that even now it still looks like the bailout came at quite a cost to taxpayers, despite substantial evidence to the contrary. They maintain that allowing the automakers to go into liquidation wouldn’t have been such a terrible thing, which is easy to say since it didn’t happen.

Democratic candidates will point to the relative success of TARP and the auto company bailouts and paint a picture of what would have happened had TARP not been enacted and either company had liquidated.

As politics heats up leading up to the 2012 national elections, expect debate over the auto bailouts to play a major role in determining political winners and losers.

David Ruggles has spent his working life in every phase of the retail side of the auto business, new and used, sales and management, including consulting and training in both the U.S. & Japan. Ruggles has been a dealer for Mercedes-Benz, Chrysler, Dodge, GMC, Ford, Mazda, and Subaru, and has consulted for one of the world’s largest privately owned Toyota dealer groups located in Japan. He blogs at autosandeconomics.blogspot.com and writes regular columns for several publications.

Dealers Push Back

Emboldened by recent healthy profits and the prospects of a recovering economy, auto manufacturers are pressuring their surviving dealers, at least the ones that have survived arbitrary terminations and recession, to upgrade their facilities. This, at a time when Dealers are desperately trying to repair their balance sheets and reconstruct relationships with their bankers after a bloody few years of just trying to “hang on.” Dealers have enough problems dealing with recalcitrant banks just to maintain reasonable floor plan lines and capital loans without having to ask for facility renovation money. Perhaps after a few years of recovery and bolstering their balance sheets, Dealers might be in a better position to entertain the idea of facility upgrades. And for the ones who can get financing or have cash, does it or will it make economic sense given current trends?

Manufacturer’s demands and requests are often supported by “focus groups” where consumers are asked what value they put on a dealers facility. Everyone seems to like a nice clean facility. Let’s face it, shiny granite, marble and wood DO make an impression. So do boutique expresso bars, nail salons, shoe shine stations, and other “foo-foo” features. The problem is, as much as consumers like these things, a growing number aren’t willing to pay for them. The consumer thinks the value of their business is the 35K they just paid for a new vehicle, not the $2k the Dealer retains out of which they pay their expenses.

Increasingly, consumers care less and les about fancy facilities as their PC and monitor tend to be their showroom of choice. While a facility on a high traffic piece of property might bring consumers in to take a sales person’s time to answer questions and take a demo drive, the negotiation is much more likely to take place “on line” these days. This IS the “new normal.” This is where high overhead becomes a disadvantage. As one consumer said to a Dealer friend, “I can’t drive your overhead, why would I want to pay for it?” This same Dealer, who shall remain nameless, is being pushed by his manufacturer to erect an elaborate sign to replace the one that existed when that manufacture terminated his franchise. Having regained his franchise through arbitration the OEM just can’t understand that the old sign was “grand fathered” and the new one has to meet CURRENT city code. The sign is a small part in a major push to “encourage” the Dealer to invest more in an already impressive facility. But this is just another day in the life of a dealer.

Dale Pollak, chairman of vAuto, is right when he wrote in a recent article that there is no need for dealers to do warranty and repair work on a high dollar piece of property. Is the added convenience worth the extra overhead?

The retail auto business is trending in such a direction that Dealers need to be more conscious of overhead costs than ever before. Manufacturers need to “get a clue.” If their Dealer can’t compete because of unnecessarily high overhead mandated by the manufacturer, it becomes increasingly difficult to find another investor Dealer for that point.

And as the Internet provides a more efficient market for each new generation of consumers, high cost facilities become even more of an albatross. In other words, expect the current trend away from “in showroom” negotiation to “online” negotiation to accelerate.

Manufacturers and some Dealers seem to ignoring a demographic fact. Consumers my age tend to put a lot of value on relationships, proximity, and convenience. But younger consumers are different. They have never known life without the Internet. They feel empowered by it. They are much more likely to use the “Taj Mahal,” high overhead dealer for information and service and warranty work, but to use the Internet for negotiation. They will travel for the cheapest price. I wish this weren’t so, but it is what it is.

As such, we’re in virgin territory in the retail auto industry. The new “book” is still being written. Manufacturers cling to commonly held dogma, as do many Dealers. But the future will only be loosely based on old models. The day is coming when Dealers will have to bid for a consumer’s business on line!

The pre-owned business will most likely increase in relative profit importance in tomorrow’s dealership. Warranty income will probably continue to dwindle due to the increased quality of vehicles. Financing and after market income is under the scrutiny of Elizabeth Warren and federal bureaucrats.

The future will belong to those Dealers who are prepared for it, and not encumbered by yesterday’s standards.

So when the manufacturer comes calling Dealers may need to learn how to, “Just say NO!”

Written by David Ruggles for Auto Finance News

Bob Lutz – “The Triumph of “Gut” over Number Crunching”

Bob Lutz, auto industry icon, recently received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Automotive Fleet and Leasing Association (AFLA) at their annual conference in Las Vegas. As part of the ceremony Mr. Lutz was asked for his opinions on recent events in the automotive industry, as well his perspective on his career in the auto industry. Not only has Lutz had a brilliant career in the auto industry, his ability to articulate is what sets him apart.

Lutz has written another book, to be released next year. His previous book, “Guts: 8 Laws of Business from One of the Most Innovative Business Leaders of Our Time” is well known and widely read. While I like my own title for his book, he prefers “The Car Guy Versus the Bean Counters.” I’m sure it will be an instant best seller.
Lutz’s long adversarial relationship with the numbers people goes way back. In my own view, bean counters live by the mantra, “You can’t manage what you can’t measure.” They have no understanding for the fact that, “What you could have had, but didn’t get” is just as real, despite the fact it can’t be easily quantified. For years, Lutz has had to deal with those who thought designing and building vehicles should be based on study group data. The previous generation Malibu was an example. According to Lutz, GM’s numbers people maintained that that Malibu scored the highest in study groups of any vehicle they had ever developed. We know how that car worked out. Thanks to Lutz, GM now takes a different view in the development of their vehicles. By investing an additional $500. to $800. per vehicle in content, with a focus on interior quality, transaction prices are higher as fewer and lower incentives are required to maintain volume. The current Buick LaCrosse is an example.

Lutz points out that GM is not in the transportation business, but in the business of emotions. Consumers buy vehicles mostly based on how they view themselves driving it, and how they are perceived by others.

On the subject of Buick, Lutz addressed the issue of why GM chose to maintain the Buick brand instead of others they let go. Buick is a hot brand in China. Over time, Chinese became impressed with the Buick brand because it was the chauffeur driven vehicle of choice of the wealthy and high ranking officials going back decades. In fact, Chinese preferred Buick to Cadillac. This preference made the Buick brand the obvious choice when the decision had to be made.

Lutz is highly critical of the U.S. government’s CAFE approach to fuel economy, preferring the European model of fuel taxes. His comment, “CAFE is like trying to control American obesity by only producing standard sized clothing,” brought down the house. In his view, phased in fuel taxes would influence consumers in what they buy and drive, making it easier for manufacturers to predict consumer preferences. The fact that this is not politically viable is another story. Lutz believes that U.S. consumers will not pay a premium for high fuel economy vehicles without a dramatic rise in fuel prices, despite the fact he raves about the new GM VOLT. At some point Americans will tire of fighting the war against radical Islam and paying for both sides of the war.

When questioned about any possible political ambitions Lutz replied, “First of all, I’m too old. Secondly, I wasn’t born in the U.S., and we know how that plays in this country. But should those things be waived, I might agree to be Emperor for a couple of years.” Extreme laughter followed this “tongue in cheek” comment.
When the subject of the auto industry bailout came up, “Lutz first responded by saying, “I really don’t have anything in common with the average Democratic voter.” Again laughter. But he went on to say, “The administration’s team did an admirable job. There is no doubt they had to trample on some due process issues, but the end result was magnificent.” While I would have loved to have been able to ask questions about SIGTARP, the dealer terminations, the executive shuffling at GM, the impending IPO, etc., there wasn’t an opportunity.

Lutz kept his audience spellbound and there was a discernible wave of disappointment when it was time for his segment to conclude.
Going into his version of retirement he has left a lasting legacy on the auto business. Bob Lutz is at the top of my list of those I would most like to have a beer with.

David Ruggles
WARDS Dealer Business
Sept 2010