Any college student can tell you that loud music, pretty girls and cars all go together, but it could be the combination of the three that prevents private equity dealmaker Steven Rattner from becoming Barack Obama's first car czar.
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The founder of media buyout firm Quadrangle Group is reportedly at the top
of the list for the soon-to-be-created position, according to ABC News.
Congressional Democrats and the Obama team are currently working on
creating the position that would supervise the overhaul of the American
auto industry.
Despite a lack of experience with the automotive industry, the actual hang up over a possible nomination is a dustup around magazines featuring music and women that
could trip up Rattner's assumption of the position, according to the New York Post.
Cerberus Capital Management LP, the current owner of Chrysler LLC, lent
Rattner's Quadrangle $125 million as part of the financing for the
buyout of Maxim magazine and music publication Blender. As both titles
limp through the drop in advertising revenue, Cerberus wants more
capital invested to cover the debt levels, a request that Quadrangle
has balked at. The two remain at loggerheads over the issue with
Cerberus claiming the loans are technically in default.
The post writes:
"It's crazy," said one surprised source familiar with the
money squabble. "Cerberus is about to foreclose on the loan to
Quadrangle, and now Steve Rattner is going to be the boss of Cerberus,"
the source said.
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George White
See ABC news story
See NY post story
Comments
Obama's administration is facing another controversy as the kickback scandal arise. Steve Rattner, selected to oversee the automobile industry as the Car czar, of sorts, was the head of the Quadrangle Group, an investment firm that is under SEC investigation. He is alleged to have agreed to finance distribution of a film called Chooch, an Americanized Italian term for a person of questionable intellect, in what seems to be a pay for play scheme in which he got control of a New York based pension fund. Maybe he did it for debt consolidation, or perhaps he was a chooch himself. Regardless, Steve Rattner would get a quick payday loan to make the Chooch scandal go away.