General Motors Corp said Monday that October U.S. light vehicle sales fell 45.1% to 168,719 units from 307,408 a year ago.
From Bloomberg….
Ford reported a 30 percent decline and Toyota posted a 23 percent drop. Honda Motor Co.’s were down 25 percent and Nissan Motor Co.’s slid 33 percent.
The Treasury Department has turned down a request by General Motors for up to $10 billion to help finance the automaker’s possible merger with Chrysler, according to people close to the discussions.
A possible GM-Chrysler merger probably only makes sense to GM with government help – and with tens of thousands of projected layoffs (some estimates are 200 thousand job losses including suppliers and other service providers), this deal probably isn’t very appealing to lawmakers.
Without this deal, Chrysler will probably go bankrupt – and the jobs will be lost anyway – and some lenders will be stuck with Chrysler pier loans (more write downs for some banks).