Cerberus, hmmmm, isn't that the Hound that guards the gates to the underworld and death?
Cerberus close to sealing Chrysler deal: source

By Michael Flaherty and Megan Davies 1 hour, 19 minutes ago

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Cerberus Capital Management appears close to striking a deal to buy Chrysler Group, a source familiar with the matter said on Sunday, in an agreement that would place the No. 3. U.S. automaker in the hands of a private equity owner.

An announcement of the pact could come as early as Monday, the source said, with several major newspapers also reporting that Cerberus was poised to win a majority stake in Chrysler.

Germany's DaimlerChrysler AG put its struggling U.S. auto unit up for sale earlier this year under the weight of rising costs plaguing the entire U.S. industry.

Chrysler Chief Executive Tom LaSorda would continue to run the company while former Chrysler chief operating officer and Cerberus adviser Wolfgang Bernhard would not have an executive role but could have a board seat, two newspapers reported on Sunday. Daimler would likely keep a minority stake in the company.

Cerberus and Chrysler declined to comment on the auction.

Details on the price or other terms of the offer were not clear on Sunday. A previous offer by billionaire Kirk Kerkorian of $4.5 billion in cash for Chrysler was rejected. The purchase price is expected to be well below the $36 billion the former Daimler-Benz AG paid for Chrysler Corp. in 1998.

Key to the offer is the company's $18 billion in pension and health-care liabilities owed to Chrysler's
United Auto Workers employees.

As in any auction, a deal could fall apart or a different outcome could occur.

The bidders that publicly said they were vying for Chrysler are Kerkorian's Tracinda Corp. and Canadian autoparts maker Magna International. Private equity firm Blackstone Group also pursued Chrysler, and was said to be linked up with smaller buyout firm Centerbridge Partners.

Tracinda was frozen out of the bidding. The fate of the other offers remained unclear on Sunday.

New York-based Cerberus is a private investment fund that has built a huge private equity and hedge fund practice.

INDUSTRY EXPERIENCE

Key to its pursuit of Chrysler is the firm's experience with the auto industry and its stake in GM's financing arm. General Motors Corp. agreed in April 2006 to sell a 51 percent stake in its financing arm, General Motors Acceptance Corp., to a consortium led by Cerberus in a deal worth about $14 billion.

Among the prized assets within Chrysler is its own auto financing arm.

Private equity firms buy controlling stakes in companies, restructure the businesses, and typically sell them two to four years later. They borrow around two-thirds of the money to make their purchases.

Frothy debt markets and a steady economy have allowed these so-called buyout firms to go on an unprecedented buying spree.

Cerberus was among the firms that co-led the proposed $3.4 billion investment to support Delphi Corp. in the auto-parts maker's emergence from bankruptcy.

But Delphi said last month that it expected Cerberus to pull out of the plan. An exit from Delphi by Cerberus would underscore the difficulty in negotiating new labor contracts between the bankrupt supplier and the United Auto Workers union.

The tension between Cerberus and the UAW would spill over into a deal with Chrysler, where the UAW membership is strong. The union has said that it wants a corporate or "strategic" buyer for the company and not a private equity firm.

The cost cuts that private equity firms often impose has spurred unions in the United States and abroad to oppose the leveraged buyout industry.



Note:

Cerberus

The most dangerous labor of all was the twelfth and final one. Eurystheus ordered Hercules to go to the Underworld and kidnap the beast called Cerberus (or Kerberos). Eurystheus must have been sure Hercules would never succeed at this impossible task!

The ancient Greeks believed that after a person died, his or her spirit went to the world below and dwelled for eternity in the depths of the earth. The Underworld was the kingdom of Hades, also called Pluto, and his wife, Persephone. Depending on how a person lived his or her life, they might or might not experience never-ending punishment in Hades. All souls, whether good or bad, were destined for the kingdom of Hades.


Toledo 1969.371
Main panel:Hercules and Cerberus, upper half
Photograph by Maria Daniels, courtesy of the Toledo Museum of Art

Cerberus was a vicious beast that guarded the entrance to Hades and kept the living from entering the world of the dead. According to Apollodorus, Cerberus was a strange mixture of creatures: he had three heads of wild dogs, a dragon or serpent for a tail, and heads of snakes all over his back. Hesiod, though, says that Cerberus had fifty heads and devoured raw flesh.

. . . A monster not to be overcome and that may not be described, Cerberus who eats raw flesh, the brazen-voiced hound of Hades, fifty-headed, relentless and strong.
Hesiod, Theogony 310

Cerberus' parents were the monster Echinda (half-woman, half-serpent) and Typhon (a fire-breathing giant covered with dragons and serpents). Even the gods of Olympus were afraid of Typhon.

etc. From:

(http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/Herakles/cerberus.html)