Just got call from my contacts at HSS and I was told Fisker filed chapter 11 .
Case number 13-13086 13-13087 check it out
http://www.autonews.com/article/201...utonews-blast&r=6990A1322578H3Z#axzz2lQ4vem7C
From Bloomberg:
What’s left of electric-car maker Fisker Automotive Inc. will be acquired as part of a bankruptcy reorganization by Hybrid Technology LLC, after it won an auction for a defaulted loan made by the U.S. Energy Department.
U.S. taxpayers lost $139 million in the deal, in which Hybrid won the rights to the loan and agreed to acquire Fisker’s assets, which include a shuttered General Motors Co. factory in Wilmington, Delaware, that Fisker was supposed to reopen.
Fisker today filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection as part of the deal.
The Energy Department decided to auction its interest in Fisker, whose $103,000 Karma was driven by actor Leonardo DiCaprio and singer Justin Bieber, after the company defaulted on its loan without making a payment and attempts to find a buyer failed. The Fisker loan made President Barack Obama a target of Republican opponents who accused him of “crony capitalism.”
Hybrid Technology is being represented in Washington by the Glover Park Group, a strategic communications firm, whose leadership includes Joe Lockhart, White House spokesman during Bill Clinton’s presidency.
A Hybrid spokesman declined to say where the company is based or who its leadership is. “Unfortunately we can’t comment beyond the press release at this time,” Caroline Langdale, the spokesman, said in a phone interview.
Vehicles Destroyed
Fisker, based in Anaheim, California, received $192 million from an initial loan commitment of $529 million from a program intended to spur production of alternative-energy vehicles. It was cut off from the remaining money in 2011 after missing production milestones for the Karma.
The company was co-founded by and named after former Aston-Martin designer Henrik Fisker, and backed by $1.2 billion in venture-capital investments. It stopped making cars last year after a Karma quit running during a Consumer Reports road test and failures in batteries supplied by A123 Systems Inc. led to a U.S. recall and A123’s bankruptcy.
Most of Fisker’s remaining vehicles were destroyed by flooding during Hurricane Sandy after it ceased production, and its insurance company refused to pay for the damages. Henrik Fisker quit after about 75 percent of the company’s employees were fired.
When it resorted to auctioning off the loan balance, the Energy Department said it would require bidders to commit to doing design and engineering work in the U.S., building on the program’s intention to create or retain jobs in the country.
The department recouped about $28 million from Fisker’s accounts after the first payment was missed. Fisker faces millions of dollars in court judgments over unpaid bills, and would have had more restructuring options absent the government’s financial interest.
Taking Applications
The vehicle-lending program still has 60 percent of its $25 billion in available money and hasn’t awarded a loan since 2011. The department recently said it would begin taking applications again, though legislation has been introduced in the U.S. Senate to stop that from happening.
Fisker, which produced the Karma in Finland, planned to use most of its $529 million loan commitment to develop a second model at the former GM plant in Delaware. It was never produced.
Fisker’s loan was the largest approved for three startup automakers granted loans. The Energy Department earlier auctioned the balance of Vehicle Production Group LLC’s $50 million loan after the closely held wheelchair-van maker failed without making a payment.
Tesla Motors Inc. repaid its $465 million loan in full in May, nine years early. Ford Motor Co. and Nissan Motor Co. are making regular payments on their loans.
To contact the reporter on this story: Angela Greiling Keane in Washington at
[email protected]
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Bernard Kohn at
[email protected]
