Frankfurt - With private-equity investors reported to be
hungry for the prize, DaimlerChrysler could net up to 9 billion euros
for the sale of its US division Chrysler, a German newspaper said
Saturday.
Welt am Sonntag, releasing news to appear in its Sunday edition,
quoted sources close to the negotiations as saying the sale could
yield 'between 6 billion and 9 billion dollars,' well ahead of
earlier estimates.
The Goldman Sachs investment bank had earlier forecast bids would
top out at around 6 billion euros.
Private-equity firm Cerberus Capital Management lodged a bid for
Chrysler on Friday, the newspaper said. Cerberus was reported to see
the key value in Chrysler's financial services division.
The Detroit News has reported Blackstone Group and the Canadian
auto supplier Magna International Inc were also expected to bid.
Magna was expected to team with private-equity group Ripplewood.
DaimlerChrysler declined comment Saturday on the report.
Buyers put their hands up in mid-February when DaimlerChrysler
chief executive Dieter Zetsche announced the company was keeping all
options open for Chrysler, the fourth-largest US automaker and parent
to the Jeep and Dodge brands.
Hilmar Kopper, retiring chairman of DaimlerChrysler's supervisory
board, meanwhile scorned speculation that private-equity firms might
lasso the whole of DaimlerChrysler and break it up to chisel out its
unsung value.
'As long as the business is properly run and fairly valued on the
stockmarket, Daimler is going to be just too big,' Kopper told a
Sunday newspaper, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung.
He rejected the idea of friendly investors clubbing together to
ward off private-equity investors.
'That kind of club is only stable if the business is profitable,'
he said. 'They need that pressure, otherwise the protection only
serves the interests of management, often to the detriment of other
stockholders.'
© 2007 dpa - Deutsche Presse-Agentur 
USA
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