this is something that i not heard anyone talk about yet, but its what happens in the auto and other industries frequently. am i missing something?
I guess you are missing a lot. Reason why a company buy one company is similar to the reason why you are buying say a Big Mac. It can be that you believe that the Big Mac is worth your money so that you spend the money, purchase it and eat it to your satisfaction. Similar issues with a company. They buy products or even other companies if the money they put in allow them to get the satisfaction that they want. For companies, their satisfaction is normally profit maximization. If companies do not see a value doing so, they won't. Hence it is not that other companies do not come in to buy, it is just that they feel it is not worth the value. Therein lies the bailout issue, the govt have to step in where other companies refused to do so and rescue at the expense of the tax payers' money.
Most other car manufacturers also have lower sales so they don't have the money available to just buy another one.. And if anyone else is interested in Ford or GM, it's cheaper for them to wait until these go bankrupt and only buy the interesting parts at a good price, then to buy those companies now with all debts and liabilities included..
I don't think corporate firms would be interested to buy and get themselves involved in auto industries. There are just too many issues involved mainly on price competitiveness and union problems affecting the industry. In this case, the government has no choice but to step in by providing bailout.
The only way out of the union contracts, bad dealerships and other mis-management that has gone on for yeras and years is to bankrupt them and then start over with the assets. Bailing them out is a waste of tax dollars. Buying one of them as a going business would be insane.
Yah, once one or two of the U.S. auto companies go bankrupt, I could see another company buying them. There's also the possibility of a merger, resulting in a super-company, like a Ford/GM combo.