Tuesday, March 10, 2009

Jerry York Says "I Told You So"; Declines Comments On Tracinda's Failed Auto Bet

Kirk Kerkorian's former GM board of directors watch dog is apparently dying to say "I told you so" when discussing GM's faulty strategy which is currently costing taxpayer billions to keep the zombie car maker on life support. Jerry however, had little to say about how Tracinda lost boatloads of money in failed investments with both GM and Ford over the past several years. In an interview with Reuters, York had this to say:
"All of the data I've seen on GM would indicate that at the end of the whole operational restructuring, they would have piled up so much debt. In many respects they would be back where they are today," York told Reuters in an interview late last week and published Tuesday."
York, who hightailed it out of GM's BOD after the company refused to submit to Kirk's demands for an alliance with Renault-Nissan is is part of the chorus against a full-blown GM bankruptcy.

"It is not inconceivable that the federal government could decide to orchestrate a cram-down, quickie bankruptcy filing," York told Reuters.

He added: "I personally believe it would be deplorably bad to have a company the size of GM go through a normal bankruptcy process at this time. With the unemployment rate being so high, the carnage in the financial markets, it's going to make the markets substantially worse."

"There are no great choices here," he said. "There are only bad choices. The question is what is the least bad choice."

All of this is great, however not surprisingly York does not talk about Tracinda's horrendous timing of getting involved in both GM and F, both investment ending up a massive loss for Kerkorian, which coupled with Kirk's other recent flop in MGM (in which Kirk has personally pledged his shares in order to fund a revolver that was used to buy Ford shares) probably should send a message to Tracinda's owner that it might be time to call it a day on his "stock picking" career.

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