Billionaire Kerkorian's Tracinda makes $4.5B cash offer for Chrysler

Billionaire investor Kirk Kerkorian, who lost out in Chrysler's 1998 merger with Daimler-Benz, wants to buy the troubled automaker back from its now-unhappy German owners.

Kerkorian's wholly-owned investment company, Tracinda Corp., on Thursday made a $4.5 billion (€3.36 billion) cash offer for DaimlerChrysler AG's U.S.-based Chrysler unit.

A deal would put Kerkorian in charge of Chrysler a decade after he claims he was tricked out of potentially billions of dollars in the 1998 deal in which Germany's Daimler-Benz joined with Chrysler in the so-called "merger of equals."

Long an active investor in automakers, the 89-year-old former movie mogul once offered $22.8 billion for Chrysler in an unsuccessful 1995 takeover bid.

The offer disclosed Thursday from Tracinda is slightly lower than at least one competing bid from Canadian auto-parts supplier Magna International Inc., worth a reported $4.7 billion (€3.5 billion).

Source: Herald Tribune