US billionaire Kirk Kerkorian's investment firm Tracinda has written an exclusivity clause into its $4.5 billion (€3.35 billion) offer to buy Chrysler that industry experts call a shrewd move but a potentially troublesome one for the carmaker's board.
DaimlerChrysler, which confirmed last week that it was talking with prospective buyers of the loss-making Chrysler unit, could run into problems with irate rival bidders and disgruntled shareholders if it accepts an exclusive arrangement with just one buyer, academics said.
Kerkorian's bid comes almost 10 years after his failed first attempt to buy Chrysler and is his second major power play at a US car firm in the past two years. He previously owned as much as 9.9 per cent of General Motors but sold that stake last year following its rejection of his proposed tie-up with Nissan and Renault. Following the US government's bail-out of Chrysler in the 1980s, Kerkorian began amassing shares in Chrysler and ultimately controlled 100 million shares.
After the $40 billion (€29.8m) 1998 buyout of Chrysler, Kerkorian sued DaimlerChrysler, charging that it deceived shareholders by characterising the deal as a "merger of equals." The suit was later dismissed.
In a separate letter to DaimlerChrysler chief executive Dieter Zetsche, former Chrysler executive and current Kerkorian adviser Jerome York said a long-term approach was needed to solve Chrysler's problems. York said it would likely take five to seven years to build Chrysler into a "robust and lasting, stand-alone entity."
He also noted that a private ownership approach was in the "best interests of all Chrysler constituencies." York said a substantial portion of Chrysler equity should be offered to UAW as part of a solution to rising healthcare costs. UAW spokesman Roger Kerson declined to comment on Tracinda's bid. UAW president Ron Gettelfinger said in Detroit that the union wanted DaimlerChrysler to retain the US unit.
"This latest offer reinforces our view that the most likely outcome for Chrysler is a sale to a private equity buyer which promises a conciliatory approach to labour," Lehman Brothers analyst Brian Johnson said.
The son of an Armenian immigrant, Kerkorian grew up the youngest of four children in Fresno, California. After dropping out of school in the eighth grade, he boxed for a while under the moniker "Rifle Right", before joining the RAF to fly supply planes from Canada to Britain during the second World War. After the war, his love of flying and risks took him to Las Vegas, where the gambling industry was in its infancy.
He bought surplus war planes to fly gamblers from Los Angeles to Las Vegas, and made his first fortune when the business, called Trans International Airlines, went public in 1965. In 1968, he sold it to Transamerica for more than $100 million (€74m) in cash and stock.
The first investments to earn him recognition came in 1970, when he built the 2,000-room International Hotel in Las Vegas, and became the largest investor in Hollywood movie studio MGM. Kerkorian expanded his entertainment empire in 1981, buying another faded Hollywood studio, United Artists, and merged it with MGM. He sold MGM to Ted Turner in 1986, but months later bought it back, except for 3,300 titles from its classic film library. He sold MGM again in 1990, but bought it for a third time in 1996, when French bank Credit Lyonnais put the studio up for auction.