More on Cerberus

Cerberus now owns 80% of Chrysler and 51% of GM.

Cerberus is the vampire of the business world. Being owned by it is a kiss of death.

Yesterday I posted this information which indicates that former Bush Treasury Secretary John Snow and Former VP Dan Quayle are or have been Chairs of Cerberus.

Here is more information on Cerberus:

In more than a decade of buying into down-and-out companies across three continents, Cerberus Capital Management has applied a similar strategy to most of its targets: cut, cut and cut some more.

Now Chrysler is set to join a list of acquisitions that includes long-haul trucker Fruehauf, Air Canada and lingerie maker Frederick's of Hollywood. Many of those companies have experienced turnarounds under Cerberus's slashing ways, but not without pain.

New York's Cerberus bought more than 600 struggling Albertsons supermarkets last year and laid off nearly 1,000 workers within months. Last fall, the firm bought the on-the-brink Blue Bird school bus manufacturer; earlier this month, Cerberus closed its Canadian bus plant and let go 130 workers. Cerberus bought a North Carolina textile company out of bankruptcy in 2004 and closed two mills within the year. It bought the Alamo and National car rental chains out of bankruptcy in 2004 and moved them from high-rent South Florida to more-affordable Tulsa.

(More)

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=4635533&mesg_id=4635533

The article describes how Cerberus bought Albertsons and Mervyn's and in each case fired employees and closed stores. That is their M.O. You can be sure that the effort to break the unions has Cerberus's blessing, but that they desperately want a share of the bail-out money and will do anything to get it.

Here is more:

What's happening at Mervyns is happening elsewhere at an alarming rate. While private equity firms control just a tiny fraction of U.S. corporations, their companies are disproportionately troubled. Of the 105 big U.S. companies that have filed for bankruptcy this year, 66 have been owned by buyout shops or been spun off by them, according to Capital IQ, another unit of McGraw-Hill. Investors, meanwhile, remain skeptical of many of the recent buyouts that haven't yet blown up but soon could. Loans made for those deals are now trading for as little as 33 cents on the dollar. Video on buying stakes in Private Equity.

http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/08_49/b4111040876189.htm?chan=top+news_top+news+index+-+temp_top+story

This is not a problem with overpaid workers. This is a problem with greedy management.

I don't recall if GM sold the controlling interest of GMAC to Cerberus before or after they acquired Chrysler from Mercedes Benz.

Dan Quayle is the chairman of Cerberus.

The Chairman is it's founder Steve Fineberg/

I found. John Snow

Just because Cerberus, known for leveraged buyouts and destroying companies bought Chrysler, doesn't mean anything! Weeeeeeeeeeeeee!

They knew damn well when they named that company

...I spent my childhood in Millbrae, California, a 'burb just south of San Francisco, and Mervyn's has been the only department store there ever since I was a teenager. But aside from that, it's just so sad to read how someone in their 80s, someone who should be enjoying the twilight years, watches what he built get destroyed due to greed. His was the generation of Mr Smith Goes to Washington, and it all collided with Gordon Gekko.

Business is set up to roll over lives without pity. Corporate entities are fertile ground for exploitation, and fuck anyone with human issues like family and health care. It should be criminal, but since corporations aren't held to the same laws as individuals, no one is ever accountable for all the pain they cause. Just concentrate on the Bottom Line, nothing else matters.