NEW YORK - With the Chrysler takeover, US private equity firm Cerberus will cap its systematic advance on US automobile companies to become one of the world leaders in the sector.
Since its creation in 1992, Cerberus, headed since 2006 by former US Treasury secretary John Snow, has quietly accumulated world-scale companies.
The firm owns 38 companies, including Israeli bank Leumi; Canadian carrier Air Canada; US car rental agencies Alamo and National; companies in the aviation, construction and clothing sectors; and 250 Burger King fast-food restaurants.
Overall, Cerberus rakes in 60 billion dollars in revenue a year.
Topping all the acquisitions it has assembled are trophies in the auto sector: Last year it bought from General Motors a controlling 51 percent stake in its auto financing arm GMAC, a leading specialized credit company in the United States, for 7.4 billion dollars.
In late March it bought bankrupt auto equipment maker Tower Automotive, the world leader in truck chassis and one of Ford Motor Co.'s main suppliers, for one billion dollars.
Cerberus also acquired bus makers North American Bus Industries and Blue-Bird in 2006. Two years earlier, it bought equipment maker GDX Automotive and Guilford Mills, a world-class maker of auto seats.
The firm, however, recently failed in a bid to buy another major bankrupt equipment maker, Collins & Aikman, which was sold to financier Wilbur Ross.
And it also recently announced it was pulling out of a plan to invest in Delphi, the bankrupt auto equipment group.
Leading the private equity firm's auto strategy is a former Ford top executive, David Thursfield.
For the Chrysler bid, Thursfield recruited two other former business leaders: Chrysler's ex-chief operating officer Wolfgang Bernhard and Ford's ex-vice president of sales, Robert Rewey.
Cerberus is not the only private equity fund roaming the auto sector. Its rival Blackstone, for example, bought the auto equipment division of TRW for 4.7 billion dollars in 2003.
05/14/2007 17:04 GMT