UPDATE: Well-Known Names On Chrysler's Secured Lenders List
May 01 2009 - 6:28PM
Dow Jones News
The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Yale University and
Halliburton Co. (HAL) are among Chrysler LLC's secured lenders,
according to a court document filed in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in
Manhattan.
The list contains names of more than 100 secured lenders,
including two funds run by Oppenheimer Funds and a hedge fund run
by Stairway Capital Management. Oppenheimer and Stairway are known
to have rejected the Treasury Department's debt-reduction deal
offered to lenders. Another dissenter, Perella Weinberg Partners
LP, was originally against the deal but changed its mind
Thursday.
Others on the list, including the Kensington International Ltd.
fund run by Elliott Management and a fund run by York Capital
Management, are also known to have accepted Treasury's deal.
News of the filing was reported earlier by Bloomberg News.
A group of about 20 lenders, calling themselves the "non-TARP
lenders" to distinguish themselves from the large banks that have
received government bailout funds and that agreed to the Chrysler
debt restructuring terms, have been blamed by the Obama
administration for helping to send Chrysler into bankruptcy
proceedings. Chrysler was offering $2.25 billion to its secured
lenders, on $6.9 billion worth of debt.
A call to Tom Lauria, a lawyer representing the non-TARP
lenders, was not immediately returned as he was flying from New
York to Miami Friday. Besides Oppenheimer and Stairway, it is
unclear which lenders are among those that rejected the Treasury's
deal, and how many of them are part of the non-TARP lenders
group.
President Obama chided those who rejected the deal on Thursday,
saying they held out for "an unjustified taxpayer-funded bailout,"
hoping they could avoid the sacrifices that other stakeholders had
made. "I don't stand with those who held out when everybody else is
making sacrifices," he said.
Other big names on the list include a fund run by Oaktree
Capital Management, three run by Trust Company of the West, and
three others managed by Marc Lasry's distressed-investing firm,
Avenue Capital Management. An Avenue spokesman declined to comment
for this article.
-By Joseph Checkler; Dow Jones Newswires; 201-938-4297;
joseph.checkler@dowjones.com
(Gregory Meyer contributed to this article.)