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I thought it would be educational to know just who Cerberus Capital Management is. Especially when you consider that they, as much as anyone had their hands out in this whole auto bailout ordeal.
Cerberus owns 80% of Chrysler.
An investor group led by Cerberus owns 51% of General Motors.
Cerberus says they don't have the money to keep Chrysler afloat. They say the same for GM.
But let's look at Cerberus and their impressive list of aquisitions in just the last few years:
* Pharmaceuticals - In December 2004, the company announced the acquisition of Bayer's plasma products business and renamed it Talecris Biotherapeutics.
* Paper products - The company acquired MeadWestvaco's paper business for $2.3B in 2005 and renamed it NewPage Corporation. Cerberus also purchased, from Georgia Pacific Corporation, its Distribution Division/Building Products and all of its associated real estate. It renamed this new company BlueLinx Holdings, based in Atlanta.
* Government Services (Military, Energy, and Food & Drug) - owns IAP Worldwide Services, which bought Johnson Controls' World Services division in February 2005, and Netco Government Services.
* Real Estate - Through investment affiliate Cerberus Real Estate, the company has been making direct equity, mezzanine, first mortgage, distressed and special situation investments in all asset types. It also controls Miami Beach.-based LNR Property, a large real estate development and investment firm through subsidiary Riley Property. Cerberus also controls Kyo-ya, a Japan based group of entities that owns several Starwood managed assets in California, Hawaii and Florida.
* Retail - Cerberus purchased 655 of the 2,500 Albertson's, Inc., grocery stores, forming Albertsons LLC of Boise, Idaho, in June 2006. They also own Mervyn's department stores, which was acquired from Target Corp. In June 2007, Cerberus acquired Torex Retail Plc., a retail solutions provider in troubled waters, for approximately 400 million US dollars.<3>
* Transportation - Acquired bankrupt ANC Rental, owner of the National and Alamo car rental chains, for $230 million in October 2003 and purchased DaimlerChrysler's 45% share of debis AerFinance, an aircraft leasing business, in May 2005. Complete acquisition of debis AirFinance (later renamed AerCap) was concluded in July 2005. Also acquired North American Bus Industries, Optima Bus Corporation, and Blue Bird Corp. in the bus manufacturing sector. Cerberus also owns bus companies Coach America and American Coach Lines, which were acquired from Stagecoach Group.
* Automotive - Peguform, GDX Automotive, and Chrysler.
* Financial Services - General Motors sold a 51% stake in its GMAC finance unit to an investor group led by Cerberus Capital Management in November 2006. GM expected to receive $14 billion over the next three years from the sale of General Motors Acceptance Corp. In December 2006, Cerberus acquired the Austrian bank BAWAG P.S.K. for a reported EUR3.2 billion. In August 2007, Cerberus announced that it was closing one of their mortgage companies, Aegis Mortgage.
* Firearms - Acquired Bushmaster Firearms, Inc., from Windham, Maine native Dick Dyke for an undisclosed sum in April 2006, and purchased Remington Arms in April 2007. Under Cerberus direction, Bushmaster Firearms acquired Cobb Manufacturing, a well-respected manufacturer of large-caliber tactical rifles in August 2007. Cerberus also acquired DPMS Panther Arms December 14th 2007.<4><5> Remington Arms acquired Marlin Firearms in January 2008.<6><7>
* Entertainment - Acquired a group of seven television stations, Four Points Media Group, from CBS Corporation in 2007.<8><9>
* Other holdings of the investment group include Formica, Inc., and the Aozora Bank in Japan; and cable operator Galaxy Cable.
* In 2007 Cerberus took over Corvest a promotional products company based out of Largo, FL with arms based in Simi Vally, Ca & Thorfare, NJ.
Now let's look at some of these holdings a little closer and we get a better picture of Cerebrus. First let's look at Johnson Controls, which Cerebrus acquired in 2005. Johnson controls is a multi-national company that manufactures control systems for automobiles. But the really interesting fact is that they built the first lithium-ion battery plant for automobiles in the world. And now Cerebrus owns it.
Cerebrus bought Netco Services in 2005. Netco provides infrastructure and IT support services for government agencies, including ATF, DOD, DOE, FAA, NSA, U.s. Marine Corp, U.S. Navy and the U.S. Air Force. And now Cerberus owns it.
Cerebrus acquired the National and Alamo car rental chains in 2003.
In 2006, Cerebrus bought 655 Albertson's grocery stores.
From 2006-2008, Cerebrus has acquired ALL of these arms and munitions manufacturers:
Bushmaster Firearms, Inc.
Remington Arms
DPMS Panther Arms
Now, here is what I am getting at. In just a few short years, Cerebrus has spent untold billions of dollars on just these few corporations that I mentioned, let alone the entire list of recent acquisitions. When they bought huge stakes in GM's financial arm and Chrysler, they had to look at the company books. They knew what kind of trouble the automakers were facing. An educated guess would be that they knew a whole lot more about the increasingly troubled world of finance, but went ahead and purchased these automakers anyway, as well as continuing to make billion dollar acquisitions in other industries.
Now, keep in mind that John Snow became the CEO of Cerebrus in 2006. Snow used to be GW Bush's Treasury Secretary. Now he runs Cerebrus,, and since he came on board, the strategic acquisitions have been flying. Snow is as far in the inner circle of powerbrokers as it gets. He knew something. My guess is that this was a done deal a long time ago. The fix was in.
AND NOW HE and J. DANFORTH QUAYLE have their hands out, begging for money?
They own chains of grocery stores, they own several arms manufacturers, they own companies that run internet services for almost every major branch of the government.
And because these idiots, (or are they really) A former Bush I Vice President, and a former GW Bush Treasury Secretary make a slew of bad investments we will pay the price. There is no telling how much these vultures will skim into their personal accounts a portion of the 17 billion dollars given to them.
And we're damned if we do, and damned if we don't. These investment motherfuckers have us over a barrel. They spend years consolidating wealth and power, through any means necessary, then when they royally fuck things up, because of their high flying freewheeling investments, they come blubbering to the government, get what they want and make off like bandits, laughing at us suckers all the way.
We cannot afford to allow the auto industry to collapse by doing nothing. But finding out who is getting the lions share of this bailout money sure leaves a shitty aftertaste.
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