Finance & Business World

NEW York — Chrysler LLC will have to wait until June 1 for a court decision on whether it can sell most of its business to a group led by Italy’s Fiat SpA, a deal intended to fire up Chrysler’s idled manufacturing plants.

U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Arthur Gonzalez said late Friday that he will issue an opinion on the proposed sale "sometime Monday."

More than 300 objections were filed to the sale, though most were withdrawn or resolved. Objections from attorneys representing some of the 789 car dealers who had their contracts rejected by Chrysler and from a group of Indiana state pension and construction funds still stood.

The carmaker wants to sell itself to an entity owned by Fiat, a union benefit trust, the U paydayloans.S. Treasury and the Canadian government. If the sale is approved, Chrysler will work on disposing of the eight manufacturing plants, including two in Fenton, that Fiat isn’t taking.

The Auburn Hills, Mich.-based company will get $2 billion in cash to distribute to secured lenders holding $6.9 billion in loans. Turin, Italy-based Fiat can walk away from the sale if it doesn’t close by June 15, with a one month extensions for antitrust approvals.

Creditors, however, argued the sale was going too quickly.

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