One word of MLC everything must disappear

While the "new GM" seeks to a place among tenors of the automobile, the "old GM" tries to find, hard, from the purchasers for the remains of this industrial empire. If General Motors was able to get out of the Act of bankruptcy as quickly in July, at the end of a passage from 40 days under Chapter 11, it is primarily because a good portion of its assets considered as interesting were placed in a structure ad hoc, maintained it, under the regime of bankruptcy.

In this shell, named "Motors Liquidation Company" (MLC), is everything: 200 built land, including 25 sometimes huge industrial sites, 5,000 robots, plants of engines, warehouses, a plant of gearboxes in France (in Strasbourg), some 50 houses, the locomotives returned from their operator for technical defects, some Saturn dealers, a New Jersey golf club and even a church in Indiana... In total, $ 4.6 million of square constructions, usually industrial meters, sometimes severely polluted. And mostly located in the "Rust Belt", these States around Michigan and Ohio, where many little major industrialists interested in motor wildfires.

One word of MLC: everything must disappear. "We have not determined precisely how long it will take, but the existence of the company will stop at the end of 2011." Operations then, the remaining assets will be Echos probably transferred to a trust President and CEO of MLC, which just prior to being designated "Chief liquidator" had worked behind the scenes on the GM bankruptcy plan, as Vice President of the consulting firm Alix Partners.

First step: "We hope to submit to the bankruptcy court a plan of liquidation in the second quarter of 2010," explains this specialist in restructuring, which leased a floor GM offices in his siege of Detroit, but works without direct link with the constructor. Motors Liquidation has indeed its own Board of Directors, its own teams (a little over 80 people, including a commando of 40 experts from Alix Partners), and its own budget. Powered by a loan of $ 1.2 billion released by the Department of the Treasury, it is assumed to be covered by the future asset sales.

Disproportionate sites

Not sure yet that this is sufficient: their value was, of course, evaluated this summer to $ 2.3 billion, but this theoretical amount now seems very optimistic. "The realization of the assets be on very low bases", should be Al Koch, but for each folder, it must be a decision, "because for each property, the only costs of caretaking, electricity, heating and taxes cost US 1 to $ 2 million per year."

General Motors is the largest industrial bankruptcy in American history. The sheer scale of its ancient sites is accordingly. Too large relative to the current criteria, they are unlikely to attract any buyers, and should be demolished or converted in batches at the expense of the liquidator. An exception: the plant in Wilmington (Delaware), newly ceded to 18 million to Fisker Automotive, a start-up specialized in electric cars. But the three other large assembly plants in Pontiac (Michigan), Dayton (Ohio) and Shreveport (Louisiana) are promised in the scrap. Similarly no doubt six engines plants and six other forging. Site of Strasbourg, to sell since September 2008, Motors Liquidation is a buyer, with the help of Merrill Lynch.

Financially, MLC is the head of a passive inherited from GM so complex that it has not yet been fully identified: "amount approach 40 billion dollars, but hopefully less," according to Al Koch. Bank loans, debt providers, claims the most various... In total, almost 500,000 different commitments, including the regulations focus the bankruptcy court.