Foreign Automakers Tapped U.S. Federal Reserve During Credit Crunch
It’s well known that Chrysler and General Motors asked for Government loans to help them restructure during the most recent recession. It’s also well documented that Ford Motor Company asked for access to an emergency line of credit.
But what is less well known is that other automakers, including BMW and Mitsubishi also tapped the U.S. Federal Reserve for billions of dollars during the debt crisis. In BMW’s case, the Munich based company secured $3.62 billion in a line of credit, during a single transaction.
This helped it weather the economic storm better than others, while at the same time allowing it to invest in manufacturing and R&D, some of the funds being used for an expansion of it’s Spartanburg, South Carolina assembly plant that builds the X3 and X5. Yet, despite posting it’s lowest operating profit in 10 years during 2009, the company was still able to generate $2 billion in the black.
[Source: Bloomberg]
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