>
> In the beginning of the report, it was stated that all figures would
>be converted to US dollars, but they weren't. That was the first point.
>The more important point was that all D-B numbers were reported in BILLIONS
>and all US numbers in MILLIONS. For example, reporting a figure for
>D-B as .3 billion (instead of 300 million) and reporting figures for CC
>as 3,000 million instead of 3 billion. You can probably make the case
>that stockholders who don't read into this stuff deserve whatever they
>get, but that doesn't change the fact that this report appears to be a
>deliberate attempt to deceive stockholders and sway votes toward the
>"merger". I would venture to say that most stockholders are just average
>folks with average jobs; hardly investment professionals.
A billion is a different quantity in Europe than it is in the US.
I've gone through 3 Mergers/takeovers in the past 10 or so years and they
are very unsettling for those of us that are not senior executive level. The
only thing you know for certain is that your life is going to change and you
have little if any control over it.
The charges of deliberately misleading figures is Fraud, a felony. If true
Messers Eaton, Schremp, and others would be spending a lot of time at
Government facillities in the future. This would be a very visible, high $
crime and examples would be madeof those involved. The merger has been
scrutinized and blessed by both the US and German Governments.
The bottom line is Chrysler has been in and out of financial trouble since
the late 50s/early 60s. As the economy becomes more and more global,
Chrysler, by virtue of its lack of presence outside of North America becomes
more and more vulnerable to the up and down cycles of the auto business as a
whole. Remember in the late 60s Chrysler survived on small and mid sized
cars like Dart, Charger, Valliant, etc. the really large cars like Fury,
Monaco, New Yorker, etc. were poor sellers in a market segment that was
dominated by Ford and GM. The alleged gas shortages of the 70s put Ford and
GM right into Chryslers market niche and Chrysler almost died. Ever since it
has been a struggle for Chrysler during the down part of the sales cycle.
Ford and GM survive despite huge lossses in North America because of
significant presense overseas while Chrysler bonds revert to junk ratings. I
really don't believe Chrysler would have survived in the global economy.
Immediatley after WW II Chrysler was the #2 car maker in the world, yes they
were larger than Ford. They soon lost this position and have since been
passed by Toyota and either VW or FIAT.
The Eaton Lutz Castaing management team did a magnificent job and have
really put Chrysler back into a position of prominance in the US.
Unfortunately all the past mistakes and squandering of resources by the
previous managements have positioned Chrysler outside of international
prominance. Had all the money which was spent on non automotive ventures
been put into increasing Chryslers international presense perhaps the merger
would not have happened. Gulfstream, Chrysler Technologies, and the eforts
to change Chrysler into a holding company all were tremendous wastes of
resources. How about the TC ? Iaccoca spent more $ on that disaster than was
spent on Viper ! And all TC did was highlight all the incompetencies to the
world as the car was delayed, delayed, and then delayed again. When it did
come out it was a total failure as people recognized it for what it was, a
chromed up Lebaron.
I've been fortunate enough to work with DB in my career and I have found
them, to be decent, honest, honorable people. We've had our disagreements
and always worked them out in a very professional manner. One comment one
of our consultants made about the particular division of DB we worked with
was "They have more Phds than a university".
KW
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Fri Jun 20 2003 - 12:11:52 EDT