Business

SEARED CERBERUS

Reclusive billionaire and Cerberus Capital Management boss Steve Feinberg is scrambling to convince Uncle Sam to dip into its depleting TARP funds to extend another lifeline to ailing auto-finance company GMAC, sources tell The Post.

GMAC, the finance arm of struggling automaker General Motors, was informed this week that it must raise $11.5 billion in fresh capital in order to pass the government’s stress test. However, with its business collapsing as a result of the credit crunch and the swooning auto industry, the once-highflying firm has few options with which to meet the requirement.

The feds last year — as part of the Troubled Asset Relief Program — injected $6 billion into GMAC in order to shore it up, but have told the company that it can only devote $2.4 billion of those funds to meeting the shortfall.

That leaves $9 billion in new cash for GMAC to raise — a tall order for a company that is losing money as a result of souring loans, is short on cash and faces debt payments of between $5 billion and $10 billion by the end of next month.

According to a source, GMAC burned through $10.2 billion in cash in the first quarter, and has just $11.6 billion in cash left on its balance sheet.

That means GMAC can probably get through the second quarter by tapping its reserves (not factoring in its debt payments), but will need funding in the third quarter.

To be sure, the company has begun cutting back its lending, issuing $3.4 billion in new auto loans in the first quarter, up from $2.7 billion in the fourth quarter but well below the $13.1 billion it lent a year earlier. The company has also cut back sharply on auto leasing.

While most banks that were told to raise capital are not likely to tap the feds for more help, Uncle Sam could end up being GMAC’s only option.

What’s more, the Obama administration might be inclined to help, given that it’s leaning heavily on GMAC in its rescue of Chrysler.

As part of Chrysler going into bankruptcy last week, the White House said it would hand over Chrysler’s auto-finance business to GMAC.

For example, in order for GMAC to make its June debt payments, it might have to rely on the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. issuing new bonds of a similar amount under its Temporary Liquidity Guarantee Program, which was created to guarantee newly issued bank debt.

Between TARP and the FDIC program, the government could be on the hook for $20 billion in new rescue cash for GMAC.

Cerberus, which has about $24 billion in assets, at one point had a 51 percent stake in GMAC, but that got slashed to 15 percent when GMAC converted into a bank holding company. josh.kosman@nypost.com