So far they haven't been able to see a strong sense of urgency. It's a little here and a little there. It's not the sweeping kind of change that this company needs.
If the situation is coming apart quicker than expected, you can blame it on liquidity and management's inability to communicate and tell a good story.
I think the banks will make the revolver available if they get collateral. Collateral covers a multitude of sins.
It doesn't sound like the UAW is in the mood to be accommodating. So it looks like GM isn't going to get any more relief on the cost side until 2007. If they don't get it then, this is going to be an ugly situation.
Today's announcement didn't do anything to calm my fears. They are probably still negotiating with their banks, but I can't believe the only issue is the credit rating. Deals don't blow up over ratings. Banks care about operating results.
We'd like to see Lear's bonds get cheaper before we jump in.
While we give GM a 'B' for effort, this news is not as compelling as it sounds.
This tells us what we already know, that this is a company in deep trouble. Their GM business is falling away so fast that their non-GM growth cannot compensate for that.
The wildcard here is always management. The industry is slowing and it would be nice to see them pay down some debt and accumulate some cash instead of going off in all these different Don Quixote missions.
This isn't monumental news. But anything that helps GM's cost of funding is a good thing for the company.
This company has a long way to go. It is a marathon, not a sprint. To buy these bonds you have to be in it for the long haul. It is very possible they will trade down before they trade up.
It's just the wrong product at the wrong time.
It?s a case of the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer.
The numbers were great ... they have great ratios, they have very affluent subscribers and their revenue per subscriber goes up every month. These guys are what every cable company wants to be when they grow up.
They went from turnaround to bankruptcy in a very short time, and you have to ask yourself how did this happen.
If Lear were to go down it would come from a combination of things.
Although GM has almost $17 billion of cash, it could run through that amount very quickly in a strike scenario, accelerating the time frame for a bankruptcy filing.
A month ago I thought it was a greater than 50% chance they would strike a deal. Now I'm not so positive.
The market has priced out near-term bankruptcy risk. But the company still has industry risk, execution risk and turnaround risk.