Lender group objects to Chrysler sale to Fiat

A dissident group of Chrysler LLC lenders objected yesterday to the sale of the bulk of the automaker's assets to Italian automaker Fiat, saying that the proposed sale process is designed to prevent competitive bidding.

Meanwhile, the bankruptcy court judge overseeing the case ruled that the identities of the group's members do not need to be sealed, despite the group's lead attorney saying that death threats were made against some of them.

In an objection filed yesterday, the lenders group said the proposed sale's bidding procedures only give the appearance of legitimacy and don't maximize the sale price of the assets.

Judge Arthur Gonzales ruled that the lenders must reveal their identities by this morning.

Gonzalez said the lenders have no evidence that keeping their identities private would help protect them.

The group seeks to block an auction of most company assets to an entity managed by Fiat SpA, an outcome Chrysler said would force it to liquidate, costing thousands of jobs.

On Monday, the same group of lenders objected to a Chrysler motion to allow the company to access $4.5 billion in bankruptcy financing, saying that it was too closely tied to the proposed sale.

Thomas Lauria, an attorney for the lenders group, argued that the identities of the group's members should be sealed by the court because some of them had received threats of violence after being singled out by President Barack Obama as the cause of Chrysler's bankruptcy filing.

But Robert Hamilton, an attorney for Chrysler, said those threats only amounted to four or five "rants" on a newspaper Web site. "Anyone who has an understanding of the kind of rants on these kinds of message boards would never take them seriously," Hamilton said.

The group of holdout lenders refused a deal that would amount to 29 cents on the dollar to dissolve what they're owed and go along with the government's restructuring plan for Chrysler.