Fisker Automotive Holdings Inc. won court approval to sell its assets to China’s Wanxiang Group Corp. for an offer valued at $149.2 million, almost six times what the hybrid-car maker sought when it filed for bankruptcy.
The auction’s result “shows that a fair process is a good thing,” U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Kevin Gross said today at a hearing in U.S. Bankruptcy Court here.
Wanxiang topped Hybrid Tech Holdings LLC after 19 rounds of bidding with an offer that includes $126.2 million in cash, plus equity and $8 million in assumed liabilities. The purchase, which requires clearance under federal antitrust law, includes an abandoned General Motors Co. plant in Wilmington that Fisker acquired in 2010.
Fisker, after filing for bankruptcy in November, had asked Gross to let Hybrid buy it for about $25 million. Hybrid held a U.S. government loan that Anaheim, Calif.-based Fisker had defaulted on without making a payment. Unsecured creditors objected to the price and helped bring Wanxiang, China’s largest auto-parts supplier, into the case in December.
Wanxiang also owns the successor to A123 Systems, the U.S. company that supplied batteries to Fisker until collapsing under the cost of a recall. Henrik Fisker, who founded the carmaker in 2007, told Congress in April that A123’s bankruptcy, along with safety recalls and shipments lost to Hurricane Sandy, had hurt the company’s finances.
