Remember the faux pas a few weeks ago by the heads of the Big Three automakers, who came to Washington to plead their case for a multibillion-dollar bailout and yet arrived via private jet? Well, those execs went to the other ridiculous extreme on Tuesday, returning to what's now become our financial as well as governmental capital in hybrid cars to signal their desperation for what's become a $34 billion bailout. As if their newfound greenness will make taxpayers less green with envy about not having a private jet to tool around in.
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But at least General Motors Corp. CEO Rick Wagoner has gotten sensible about one thing: ditching the jet altogether. GM now says it will cut jobs, eliminate or sell several brands, curb executive comp and even sell its corporate jets for the $18 billion it wants.
Problem is, selling the jets will be easier said than done.
All Wagoner has to do is ask bankrupt Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc.
In a court hearing in Manhattan on Wednesday, Lehman was set to seek approval from the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York to sell one of its own corporate jets, a Dassault Falcon 50, to Peregrine Aviation Systems Inc. for $6.2 million.
In its motion to sell the jet, however, Lehman blamed a saturated market for such aircraft for the seemingly low price. The failed investment bank said it had been marketing the jet since September, even before its collapse. But as time passed, the plane's valuation only fell.
"[Lehman] is aware of at least 38 Falcon 50 aircraft being actively marketed -- more than a two-year supply at the current pace of sales," the bank said, noting that it is likely that even more of the jets were "being more quietly marketed."
GM and its fellow automakers are likely to run into the same problem as they flood the market with their own corporate jets. But we're guessing they'll sell the planes at any price if it means securing the government bailout Lehman never received.
- John Blakeley
Comments
Sell them to the banks they got 700b with no strings attached