On Thursday, Ford Motor Company (F) reiterated its point that the company can survive without a federal bridge loans, something both General Motors (GM) and now privately owned Chrysler can’t do. Event still, Ford spent about $5.5 billion dollars in the fourth quarter of 2008 alone, as it used a revolving line of credit to fund current operations. Ford, which is now projecting 2009 industry sales of 11.5 million new units, won substantial concessions from the United Auto Works union amidst slowing sales and weakening operating capital across the company. For the quarter, Ford posted a quarterly net loss of $5.9 billion, or $2.46 a share. Excluding costs Ford considers one-time expenses; the loss was $1.37 a share versus analyst estimates for a loss of $1.24 per share. For the full year, Ford lost a whopping $14.6 billion dollars

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Steel producer Worthington Industries (WOR), which is the largest producer of steel for automobiles, has certainly had its issues as of late. Recently, Goldman Sachs said “We believe that Worthington could default on its debt covenants by the fourth quarter of fiscal 2009”.

When a company default’s on its debt or loan covenants, similar to what happened to DryShips (DRYS) on Thursday the stock usually plummets, as investors fear that financial conditions within the associated firm are truly dire. As of 1/29/09, DryShips breached $751.8 million dollars of company debt

On Monday Pfizer (PFE) agreed to buy rival Wyeth (WYE) for $68 billion dollars in a cash and stock, creating one of the largest pharmaceutical companies in the world.

On Monday Pfizer (PFE) agreed to buy rival Wyeth (WYE) for $68 billion dollars in a cash and stock, creating one of the largest pharmaceutical companies in the world.

Interestingly enough, before the Pfizer-Wyeth merger was announced, Wyeth was in buyout talks with Crucell NV (CRXL), a Dutch vaccine company for about $1.35 billion dollars. On January 26th Wyeth publicly announced that they were pulling out of discussions with Crucell as part of their agreement with Pfizer. Additionally, Crucell dropped Morgan Stanley (MS) as a merger adviser, suggesting that the company does not wish to purse a deal with Wyeth. However, some biotech analysts believe that Crucell will ultimately receive a hostile bid

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