Takata Corp. has ruled out using bankruptcy as a way of mitigating liabilities from its record air-bag recalls and is instead seeking buyers that could take a controlling stake and carry the company through its crisis, Bloomberg News reported today. Lazard Ltd., Takata’s financial adviser, will meet manufacturers as well as financial firms with the aim to find buyers by the fall. Takata’s plan is to remain listed and maintain its core seat-belt, air bag and steering wheel businesses, while selling off non-core operations. Any Takata suitor will be betting it can still make a return even after resolving claims from automakers, which until now have shouldered the vast majority of the costs of replacing air bags tied to the auto industry’s unprecedented safety crisis. Recalls of the devices, which can deploy with too much force and spray metal and plastic at passengers, are expanding by as much as 40 million units in the U.S., after 13 fatalities worldwide.
