NEW YORK — Attorneys for Chrysler LLC said the company will file a motion this morning to sell nearly all of its assets to Italian automaker Fiat Group SpA, but that won’t include eight plants, including five that the automaker revealed it will shut down by the end of next year.
While Chrysler faced its first hearing Friday in Manhattan bankruptcy court, court documents showed that the ailing automaker plans to close plants in Michigan, Missouri, Ohio and Wisconsin that employ about 4,800 people. Chrysler said they will be offered jobs at other plants.
Judge Arthur Gonzalez approved a series of motions at the swift hearing, launching a chain of events designed to ensure that Chrysler’s bankruptcy process is the quick and “surgical” one the company and the U.S. government have promised.
Chrysler also announced that its president and vice chairman, Tom LaSorda, is leaving immediately.
LaSorda said Thursday when Chrysler filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection that he planned to retire, but a date wasn’t set. Chrysler announced Friday that the 54-year-old’s retirement will be immediate. The company didn’t name a successor.
But what could prove to be the case’s biggest challenge still lies ahead. Chrysler must eventually deal with creditors who refused to come to a deal that would have erased much of the automaker’s debt and might have avoided a bankruptcy filing.
Another hearing was scheduled for Monday morning, where Chrysler attorneys will ask Gonzalez to let the company start using $4.5 billion in loans from the U.S. and Canadian governments to keep operating under bankruptcy protection.
Chrysler, the nation’s third-largest car manufacturer, filed for bankruptcy protection Thursday after a group of creditors defied government pressure to wipe out the automaker’s debt.
The federal government agreed to give Chrysler up to $8 billion in additional financing, on top of the $4 billion the company has received.
