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The implausible part of the Robocop movie is that someone would want to take over Detroit, that the bankruptcy court will take it over.
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USA Today
U.S. CITIES, TOWNS AND COUNTIES THAT HAVE FILED FOR BANKRUPTCY
The city of Detroit filed for Chapter 9 bankruptcy protection in federal court Thursday. It is the largest U.S. city to do so. Cities, towns and counties that have filed bankruptcy since January 2010:
DETROIT -- The city of Detroit filed for Chapter 9 bankruptcy protection in federal court Thursday, laying the groundwork for a historic effort to bail out a city that is sinking under billions of dollars in debt and decades of mismanagement, population flight and loss of tax revenue.
The bankruptcy filing makes Detroit the largest city in U.S. history to do so.
The filing begins a 30- to 90-day period that will determine whether the city is eligible for Chapter 9 protection and define how many claimants might compete for the limited settlement resources that Detroit has to offer. The bankruptcy petition would seek protection from creditors and unions who are renegotiating $18.5 billion in debt and other liabilities.
"The fiscal realities confronting Detroit have been ignored for too long. I'm making this tough decision so the people of Detroit will have the basic services they deserve and so we can start to put Detroit on a solid financial footing that will allow it to grow and prosper in the future," said Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder. "This is a difficult step, but the only viable option to address a problem that has been six decades in the making."
AUTOMAKERS: Unlikely to be hurt by city's bankruptcy
Detroit Emergency Manager Kevyn Orr, who in June released a plan to restructure the city's debt and obligations that would leave many creditors with much less than they are owed, has warned consistently that if negotiations hit an impasse, he would move quickly to seek bankruptcy protection.
Snyder signed off on the filing in a letter attached to court documents filed Thursday in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in the Eastern District of Michigan. A spokeswoman for Snyder did not immediately return telephone calls Thursday.
"It is clear that the financial emergency in Detroit cannot be successfully addressed outside of such a filing, and it is the only reasonable alternative that is available," Snyder said in the letter granting his state-required approval. "In other words, the City's financial emergency cannot be satisfactorily rectified in a reasonable period of time absent this filing."
Snyder continued: "I have reached the conclusion that this step is necessary after a thorough review of all the available alternatives, and I authorize this necessary step as a last resort to return this great City to financial and civic health for its residents and taxpayers. This decision comes in the wake of 60 years of decline for the city, a period in which reality was often ignored."
Orr's spokesman Bill Nowling said, "Pension boards, insurers, it's clear that if you're suing us, your response is 'no.' We still have other creditors we continue to have meetings with, other stakeholders who are trying to find a solution here, because they recognize that, at the end of the day, we have to have a city that can provide basic services to its 700,000 residents."
This week, the city's two pension funds (which have claims to $9.2 billion in unfunded pension and retiree health care liabilities) filed suit in state court to prevent Orr from slashing retiree benefits as part of a bankruptcy restructuring.
Ambac Assurance Guaranty, which insures some of the city's general obligation bonds, has also objected to Orr's plan to treat those bonds as "unsecured," meaning they're not tied directly to a revenue stream and would receive pennies on the dollar of their value. Ambac, and other creditors, have threatened to file suit.
A deal with creditors gives the city access to $11 million a month in casino tax revenues that Orr has said is key to maintaining city services while negotiations, in or out of bankruptcy court, take their course with other creditors and unions.
Plunkett Cooney bankruptcy lawyer Doug Bernstein, who is not involved in the bankruptcy and is not representing any parties related to it, said Thursday that the filing was critical for the city, given a growing number of legal challenges.
On Monday, an Ingham County Circuit Court judge was scheduled to hold a hearing on the city workers' and retirees' challenge to stop the city from filing for bankruptcy protection. The employee groups, and separately the city's two pension funds in another lawsuit, argue that the governor — who must and has authorized the bankruptcy filing — cannot do so if the filings include plans to reduce pension benefits, because the state's constitution explicitly protects public pensions. If the state has such plans, it wasn't immediately presented in the court filing.
Bernstein said preventing the court hearing Monday is probably a key part of the strategy behind a Chapter 9 petition by the city, because a ruling in favor of the employees could put a halt, at least temporarily, to any moves by Orr and Snyder to proceed with a bankruptcy petition. A bankruptcy filing immediately stays all such court proceedings.
"The stay kicks in as soon as the filing, whether it's Friday or Monday," Bernstein said before Thursday's filing. "The key is taking advantage of the automatic stay. Because of the lawsuit filed by the pension funds and the hearings coming up Monday, it became a factor, so to the extent that (Orr) wanted to continue negotiations with creditors, now the city is forced to" file a Chapter 9 petition.
STORY: Detroit manager pitches debt recovery plan to creditors
The 30- to 90-day eligibility fight could be prolonged beyond that time frame if creditors mount a significant challenge to Detroit's eligibility for bankruptcy. In other communities that have filed for Chapter 9 protection, such fights have extended the process a year or more, including Jefferson County, Ala., and Stockton, Calif., two of the largest municipal bankruptcy filings so far in the United States.
Detroit's bankruptcy is by far the largest of its kind in U.S. history, in terms of the city's population of about 700,000 and the amount of its debts and liabilities, which Orr has said could be as high as $20 billion. Because of the stakes involved, and the impact on residents statewide, as well as 30,000 current and retired city workers and Detroit's ability to stay in business, the case could be precedent setting in the federal judiciary. It also could set an important trajectory for the way troubled cities nationwide settle their financial difficulties.
Bernstein noted that Orr has said repeatedly his office would "negotiate with creditors until and unless we find that the negotiations won't bear fruit, with the understanding that the city has a limited amount of time" for those talks.
City Council President Pro Tem Andre Spivey said he understood that negotiations Orr was having with creditors weren't as fruitful as he'd hoped they be, and that he hopes the bankruptcy process will be relatively quick. But he stressed to residents that they needn't worry about the impact of the filing immediately.
"City services we provide will not be shut down," Spivey said. "We'll still be providing services, but the challenge is where we're going to get to as we go through the bankruptcy process."
The city has lost more than half of its population over the last 60 years. In 1950, the city was the fifth-largest city in the country with a population of around 1.8 million. Today its population is estimated at just under 700,000.
Wall Street Journal
Record Bankruptcy for Detroit
Motor City 'Is Broke,' Governor Says, as It Seeks to Restructure $18 Billion in Debt
The city of Detroit files for Chapter 9 federal bankruptcy protection, making the automobile capital and onetime music powerhouse the country's largest-ever municipal bankruptcy case. WSJ Global Autos Editor Joe White reports.
DETROIT—The city of Detroit filed for federal bankruptcy protection Thursday after decades of decline, a new low for a city that once defined industrial America's might but was hollowed out by the flight of residents and businesses to the suburbs.
The filing by the automobile capital and onetime music powerhouse—which has liabilities of more than $18 billion—is the country's largest-ever municipal bankruptcy case.
The move to restructure the debt is bound to set off months, if not years, of legal wrangling, asset sales and cuts to benefits for Detroit workers and retirees, including 20,000 on city pensions. Owners of the city's bonds are expected to battle with retirees and others for pieces of the city's diminished wealth.
Detroit is no stranger to bankruptcy after two of its most prominent companies—General Motors Co. GM +1.32% and Chrysler Group LLC—entered and quickly exited Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2009, thanks to an $80 billion federal bailout.
But without a similar rescue—which the White House has indicated isn't forthcoming—Thursday's filing is fundamentally different and potentially much more treacherous for the city, officials and experts said. It casts the nation's 18th largest city into largely uncharted legal waters because few municipalities—and none this size—have undergone financial reorganization.
"I am terrified, and I am nervous," said Vaughn Derderian, the 36-year-old manager of the Anchor Bar, a fixture in downtown Detroit. "It is like being on a speeding freight train and you have no idea where it's going to go."
Detroit has shrunk from its peak population of nearly two million in 1950 to about 700,000 today. Damaged by cuts in state aid and a crash in real-estate values that crimped tax revenue, Detroit in recent years borrowed to meet operating costs as well as long-term liabilities such as pensions and health insurance for city workers.
The city's unemployment rate has nearly tripled since 2000 and is more than double the national average. Detroit's homicide rate is at the highest level in nearly 40 years, and it has been named as one of the most dangerous cities in America for more than 20 years.
Its citizens wait an average of 58 minutes for the police to respond to their calls, compared to the national average of 11 minutes. Only 8.7% of cases are solved, compared to a statewide average of 30.5%.
The Chapter 9 filing in U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Eastern District of Michigan came after Kevyn Orr, the city's emergency manager, failed to reach agreements with enough of the bondholders and other creditors to restructure Detroit's debt outside of court.
The final decision rested with Republican Gov. Rick Snyder, who appointed Mr. Orr, a bankruptcy lawyer who had helped steer Chrysler through its 2009 reorganization, as the city's financial overseer in March.
"This was a difficult and painful decision, but I believe there are no other viable options," said Mr. Snyder in a video on Michigan's official website. "This is a situation that's been 60 years in the making in terms of the decline of Detroit. From a financial point of view, let me be blunt: Detroit is broke."
Mr. Snyder wrote in a letter to Mr. Orr and Michigan state Treasurer Andrew Dillon that he thought this will be "a chance for a fresh start, without burdens of debt it cannot hope to fully pay."
Detroit and its adjacent cities were to the early 20th century what California's Silicon Valley is today: a crucible of industrial and social innovation. Henry Ford perfected the moving assembly line for his Model T, while GM developed innovative marketing and management strategies that became the model for modern global corporations.
In response to the power of the car makers, the United Auto Workers organized employees and bargained for pay and benefits that for years set the standard for workers in other industries.
In the 1960s, Detroit became famous as the birthplace of the Motown sound in pop music, which created stars out of Marvin Gaye, The Supremes, Smokey Robinson and others. More recently, movies, TV shows and videos by rappers such as Eminem have used the city's gritty streetscapes as backdrops.
A person familiar with the matter said Detroit's filing had been expected to come Friday. But it was moved up amid pressure from a number of lawsuits, including one by pension funds Wednesday night trying to block a bankruptcy, combined with news leaks about the pending filing.
The document was so rushed that an order approving the filing by Mr. Orr had its signature date changed to July 18 from July 19.
The initial documents indicate only that the city's assets as well as its liabilities each exceed $1 billion. But in his letter, Mr. Snyder said the liabilities were more than $18 billion.
Saddled by junk status from credit-rating firms, Detroit has had its ability to borrow almost completely shut off and reached its statutory limit to tax its residents to raise new revenue, state officials said. Mr. Orr had called the city functionally insolvent, and it recently missed a payment to the city's pension system of nearly $40 million.
So far, the city has an agreement to pay some secured creditors 75 cents on the dollar on nearly $340 million in debt. In exchange, the city would get back $11 million a month in tax revenue from the city's three casinos originally used as collateral to back the debt.
But negotiations with unsecured creditors, who were offered about $2 billion to cover $11 billion in debt, remain stalled.
Joe Rosenblum, director of municipal credit research at investment firm AllianceBernstein, which owns Detroit debt, said he wasn't surprised by the filing, adding "it's only surprising that it took so long." He said Mr. Orr's restructuring proposal released in June offered so little to some bondholders "he almost forced creditors to resist."
Of particular concern to those in the municipal-bond market is the treatment of some of the city's general-obligation bonds as unsecured, meaning they could be repaid at pennies on the dollar. This type of debt is considered one of the safest municipal investments. Harsh treatment may result in higher borrowing costs for cities and towns across Michigan, and potentially the U.S., market participants said.
Next steps for Detroit could include a push by creditors for sales of city assets and determining the priority of certain debtholders in terms of repayment, said Laurence Gottlieb, chairman of private-equity firm Fundamental Advisors LP, a Detroit creditor who served on an ad hoc committee of creditors in the Jefferson County, Ala., filing, the previous biggest municipal bankruptcy.
Some in the business community, including the Detroit chamber of commerce, commended the state for ending the monthslong uncertainty about the city's financial future.
Henry Ford and Edsel Ford celebrated with photos on the production line as their 20,000,000th automobile rolled out of the factory on April 15, 1931.
GM said it doesn't anticipate any impact from the city's filing on its operations. "GM is proud to call Detroit home, and today's bankruptcy declaration is a day that we and others hoped would not come," the vehicle maker said in a statement. "We believe, however, that today also can mark a clean start for the city."
While many Detroit residents could be hurt by a long slog through bankruptcy court, at most risk may be those on city pensions and those counting on them.
"I was planning on retiring in October, but now I'm not sure. I have a lot of questions," said Herbert Jenkins, 50, who has spent the last quarter century working for the city and repairing its potholes. It's such a sad day for Detroit."
A White House spokeswoman said that "the president and members of the president's senior team continue to closely monitor the situation in Detroit."
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