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Once domestic vehicle sales began to decrease 30% per month, as they did beginning last fall, and then the rate increased to 40% or more the last three months, there was no way that Ford could finance its losses over the next year. The news that Toyota (TM) and Honda (HMC) might seek assistance from the Japanese government meant that not a single car company in the world would get by on its own. (Read about the CEOs behind Detroit's Big Three...
...through a combination of a conversion offer by Ford and cash tender offers by Ford Credit. The car company will attempt to get holders of $4.88 billion in convertible notes due in 2036 to move their holdings into the common stock of the company. The debt carries an interest rate of 4.25%. At the same time, Ford Credit will begin a $1.3 billion cash tender offer to purchase certain series of Ford's outstanding unsecured, nonconvertible debt and has also begun a separate $500 million cash tender offer to purchase Ford's senior secured term loan debt. Ford will also...
What is left unsaid in the news from Ford is that it is academic whether aid for the car companies comes from their private debt holders or the government. The UAW will bend to another round of concessions. At the rate at which The Big Three probably lost money last month, the industry could need $50 billion or more in financial support between now and the end of this year. That assumes that car sales drop at a rate of only...
...their credit, President Hu Jintao and Premier Wen have talked about the importance of expanding China's safety net and boosting rural incomes. But the global economic crisis may force them to move more quickly on these fronts. China's unemployment rate could reach 14% before the crisis is over, according to one recent study, even with all the infrastructure spending Beijing is throwing at the problem. Wen himself said Thursday that if the economy doesn't grow 8% this year (and only the most optimistic economists believe it will), the country risks politically destabilizing social unrest...
...statistics that suggest as much. The number of Paris accidents involving cyclists has exploded 37.2% since the scheme was introduced, surging from 506 crashes in 2006 to nearly 700 in 2007 (including three Vélib' rider deaths that year; there were four in 2008). However, that surging accident rate is largely accounted for by the more than 70% increase in cycle traffic since the Vélib' launch...