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...fluff. What remains is the VEBA, the multibillion-dollar trust fund designed to protect a key element of the membership's fabled retirement benefits - which the union refers to as deferred wages. As in the Chrysler deal, the UAW agreed to trade a chunk of the cash GM owed the VEBA for 17.5% equity in the company and other considerations. (Read about Detroit's efforts to reinvent itself...
...This piece of the transaction has proved most controversial - and is perhaps the biggest potential obstacle to a smooth reorganization of GM. The problem: the VEBA's haircut - trading promised cash for riskier shares - is less severe than the deal offered to some bondholders. And that's not the way bankruptcy is normally done...
...Chrysler bondholders tried to resist but were overwhelmed by the megabanks that held most of the secured debt. Having taken billions in bank bailout money, they were in no position to irritate the Treasury Department. GM's debt is more widely dispersed, however, which makes it harder to muscle a settlement. To avoid a morass in court, the task force agreed at the 11th hour to fully repay GM's secured lenders, using stock in the reorganized company...
...Although just half of GM's European businesses are located in Germany, Berlin has effectively grabbed control of efforts to save GM's Opel and Vauxhall operations, which GM's board in Detroit this week centralized under Opel's control. But Belgium and the U.K. are no longer willing to just follow Berlin's lead. Politicians and union leaders there fear that Chancellor Angela Merkel, facing re-election in September, is preparing a deal that would save GM jobs in Germany at the expense of plants in their countries. (See 10 milestones on the road to GM's bankruptcy...
...that any solution is in the offing immediately, even after 11 hours of talks in Berlin. German participants said the U.S. government and GM appeared to be stalling. For weeks, talks have focused on a German government-backed credit for Opel of €1.5 billion ($2.1 billion). But German officials said the U.S. surprised them on Wednesday with a new demand for an additional short-term credit of €300 million ($416 million). The U.S. government also rejected the German government's plan to impose itself as a kind of administrator over Opel's management. After the meeting, the Germans...