Chrysler Corp

Chrysler Corp. Chairman Lee A. Iacocca pleaded with shareholders Thursday to "stick with us" despite the flagging value of the company's stock and its lagging auto sales. Speaking to investors at the company's annual meeting in Universal City, he said, "1989 was a tough year for the auto industry . . . and an especially tough one for Chrysler. . . . (But) we are not disappointed in the progress we made during the year in getting this company ready for the decade of the '90s."

Before advertising executive Leo-Arthur Kelmenson could ignite the media blitz in 1979 that helped rescue Chrysler Corp. from bankruptcy, he had to persuade the auto company's president to serve as pitchman. Lee Iacocca's response was as blunt as the ads that followed: He told the adman to drop dead. But the auto executive soon did what Kelmenson had asked. The straight-shooting ads "raised the question that was on everybody's mind," Kelmenson later said, "Would America be better off without Chrysler?"

Investor Kirk Kerkorian said Friday that he is considering ways to enhance the value of his 9% stake in Chrysler Corp. In documents filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Kerkorian said he is exploring a broad range of alternatives, including the purchase of additional shares, the sale of stock and even an "extraordinary corporate transaction, such as a merger."

Can Chrysler be saved? If you ask the steadily confident Sergio Marchionne, the answer is yes. After all, he did something like it before, bringing Italian carmaker Fiat back from financial disaster. Now the Fiat chief executive, who also heads Chrysler, needs to convince North American consumers that the brand is here to stay and that it makes cars and trucks they want to buy. "We aren't going to bank the future of this house on one truck or one vehicle. You can't. We tried that before, and one car won't save the house," he said.

Chrysler Corp. said it has agreed to sell Automobili Lamborghini and its subsidiaries to Megatech Ltd., a Bermuda holding company, for an undisclosed price.

Moody's Lowers Chrysler's Rating: Dealing another blow to Chrysler Corp., Moody's Investors Service Inc. lowered its ratings on $16 billion worth of Chrysler's debt. The credit rating agency said it downgraded the struggling No. 3 auto maker's senior debt two notches to B-2 from Ba-3. The move, which could raise the company's borrowing costs, affected all Chrysler units, including Chrysler Financial Corp.

The newest star of a Chrysler ad couldn't get arrested in this town. Aung San Suu Kyi is a 64-year-old Nobel Peace Prize laureate and Burmese pro-democracy dissident who has spent most of the last two decades detained at her house at Inya Lake, outside of Yangon, Myanmar. Suu Kyi -- who was elected prime minister in 1990, before the military junta invalidated the election -- was again convicted in a sham trial in August after a deranged American, John William Yettsaw, swam out to her house, giving the junta the pretense to charge Suu Kyi with violating the terms of her house arrest.

Hundreds of car dealers marched on Washington this week, hoping to build public support for a bill to block General Motors and Chrysler from closing about 3,300 dealerships. These were family businesses, they said, mom-and-pop stores employing hundreds of thousands of Americans. And they were being asked to shoulder more than their share of pain in the restructuring of the auto industry. An honest political observer would acknowledge that the bill has almost no chance of becoming law.

In what is expected to be the last hurdle in Chrysler's effort to rapidly emerge from bankruptcy, a federal appeals court will hear arguments today on whether the automaker can sell itself to a new company run by Italian manufacturer Fiat. A federal bankruptcy judge approved the government-orchestrated deal earlier this week, but its completion is being delayed after three Indiana pension and construction funds filed an appeal. In hundreds of pages of documents filed Thursday in the U.S.

Chrysler is not yet out of bankruptcy, but it already has a new boss lined up. The automaker, which filed for Chapter 11 three weeks ago, said Wednesday that Robert Kidder would become its chairman once it emerges as a new company merged with Italian automaker Fiat. Kidder, the former chairman and chief of Borden Chemical and current head of investment firm 3Stone Advisors, will succeed current Chrysler Chairman and Chief Executive Robert Nardelli.

Chrysler says it will reissue checks to frustrated customers awaiting payments stemming from lemon law complaints against the automaker. Lawyers throughout the country had reported that dozens of settlement checks had bounced in the wake of Chrysler's April 30 bankruptcy filing.

Detroit's woes are hitting Main Street with a vengeance. Chrysler moved Thursday to eliminate 789 of its dealers, using its bankruptcy status to break their franchise contracts. And as many as 1,200 General Motors Corp. dealers are expected to receive termination notices as soon as today, with an additional 1,400 coming as GM works to meet a June 1 restructuring deadline.

As troubles escalated in recent weeks for ailing Chrysler, Doug Swaim, general manager at Star Chrysler Jeep in Glendale, was cautiously optimistic. The store was meeting sales expectations. He was still receiving shipments of new cars. Last week, Chrysler even asked the dealer to help host a customer appreciation event in June. So Swaim was stunned Thursday morning when he saw Star Chrysler Jeep's name on the list of nearly 800 U.S.

With thousands of Chrysler and General Motors Corp. dealerships closing, customers could be confronted with problems over warranty coverage, trade-ins or other matters. Both automakers pledge to make the contraction as painless as possible, but that doesn't mean there won't be problems. "When all of these relationships are disrupted, you can't help but have some elements of chaos, and some practical problems occur," said Aaron H. Jacoby, a Los Angeles lawyer who represents car dealers.