Obama Advisers Bloom, Rattner Said to Visit Detroit

President Barack Obama’s chief auto advisers, Ronald Bloom and Steven Rattner, may travel to Detroit next week to meet with executives at General Motors Corp. and Chrysler LLC, people familiar with the matter said.

U.S. Treasury officials Rattner and Bloom, advisers to Obama’s auto task force and Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, are among those reviewing the two automakers’ plans to keep $17.4 billion in loans and borrow as much as $21.6 billion more to survive. GM and Chrysler executives met with the committee last week in Washington to discuss progress in restructuring.

The panel is considering the GM and Chrysler plans as it studies a request for as much as $18.5 billion in aid to prop up auto-parts makers as part of an industry rescue announced Dec. 31. The funds are being distributed under the Troubled Asset Relief Program originally designed to help failing banks.

Spokesmen for GM and Chrysler had no comment. U.S. Treasury spokesman Isaac Baker declined to comment.

Bloom and Rattner spent most of a 2.5-hour meeting today with Fiat SpA Chief Executive Officer Sergio Marchionne asking about his plan to take a 35 percent stake in Chrysler, a person briefed on the session said.

GM’s bondholders also were scheduled to meet with the auto committee today.

Bondholders’ representatives planned to tell the panel that GM’s viability plan may not keep it out of bankruptcy, said a person familiar with the matter who declined to be identified because the meeting will be private.

The representatives hope to get a sense of whether the task force believes the GM plan goes far enough to ensure survival, the person said.