A second bidder for bankrupt Fisker Automotive on Monday
said it might someday produce cars in Delaware, leading state leaders and well
placed observers to express something short of optimism about the fate of the
old General Motors plant.
“A little bit of hope,” said Pete Schwartzkopf, the
Democratic speaker of the House, “is better than despair.”
As Fisker moves through bankruptcy in a Wilmington
courtroom, the fate of the Boxwood Road plant near Newport was on the lips of
many of the hundreds mingling Monday night at the state business community’s
event of the year, the Delaware State Chamber of Commerce’s Annual Dinner.
Earlier in the day, Hybrid Tech Holdings LLC had reversed
its position and said it planned to use the dormant Boxwood Road plant if
market conditions demand it. Previously, the company, owned by Hong Kong
billionaire Richard Li, had said it would sell the factory.
Bankruptcy Judge Kevin Gross said Friday he would put
Fisker’s assets up for auction to try to maximize its value, after Wanxiang
America Inc. said that if it can acquire Fisker at an auction, and succeed in
creating a mass market for its cars, they would be made at the Boxwood plant.
Fisker, the California-based plug-in hybrid car
manufacturer, received state and federal incentives to build cars at the plant.
The Delaware Economic Development Authority is owed $20
million for its economic incentives to Fisker, but it is expected to split the
same pool of money as other unsecured creditors.
Fisker also owes a collective $1 million in property taxes
on the Delaware facility.
With no one even discussing using the plant two weeks ago,
Mike Castle, the former Republican congressman and governor, said the new
options were worth exploring.
“I don’t see how you can do any worse,” said Castle,
referring to the plant sitting idle, “and you might do better.”
But Charlie Copeland, Republican state committee chairman, said
he’d like to see the property used as soon as possible – and that, he said,
might require a different use.
Copeland wondered aloud when the last time was that a new
automobile company began mass producing automobiles profitably. Even Tesla, the
electric car company that also took a government loan, isn’t quite up to mass
production, he said.
“You’re still making one heck of a bet,” Copeland said. “We
made that bet once and lost.”
Michael Uffner of the Auto Team Delaware dealerships in
Wilmington said that if the sprawling Boxwood property was sold, it would have
a chance to come into use as something else sooner than “if we waited for
Fisker to come back.
“Our best interest is to have it used for something,” Uffner
said.
Cars, Uffner said, take a long time and a lot of money to
design, engineer and build. If Delaware waits for that to happen, he said, the
plant “might sit there forever, if we wait on that promise.”
Andy Lubin, director of real estate for the University of
Delaware, said the land under the Fisker plant is valuable, but there’s no
immediate answer for what goes there. Anything that can generate activity on
that site is great for Delaware, he said, and it’s worth seeing what plans
develop for Fisker.
Fisker’s November bankruptcy filing was prepackaged with a
proposal for Hybrid as the buyer, but unsecured creditors complained they would
receive less than a penny on the dollar under the plan. They encouraged putting
Fisker up for auction, and on Friday, Gross did just that.
At a court hearing Monday, the parties were not ready to
submit a proposed schedule for the auction, nor to formalize plans to fund
Fisker on an ongoing basis. Ryan Dahl, attorney for Fisker, said the company
“could not be more pleased” that they find themselves “in the enviable
position” of having multiple bidders that are already upping their offers.
In its filing Monday, Hybrid submitted a new offer with an
additional $30 million in cash, of which $5.5 million would be a payment to
unsecured creditors, far more than Hybrid’s original offer of $500,000.
Those unsecured creditors include the State of Delaware,
which provided Fisker with $20 million in incentives. Hybrid also can apply the
$25 million it paid for an underperforming federal loan toward a purchase of
Fisker’s assets.
Hybrid said as recently as Friday that it had no interest in
using Fisker’s dormant auto plant. In an email to The Associated Press on
Monday, Hybrid spokeswoman Megan Grant wrote that Hybrid plans to use the
Delaware plant to “meet consumer demand and address market conditions.”
A Hybrid attorney declined an interview request from The
News Journal.
At the hearing on Monday, an attorney for Hybrid asked Gross
to formalize his intention to hold an auction, so they can appeal his ruling.
Source: Delewareonline.com
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