AUTOS

Chrysler Board to Decide on Kerkorian Request: The auto maker’s directors are likely to reject investor Kirk Kerkorian’s request for board representation today, analysts said, which may set off a proxy battle for control of the company. Chrysler Corp. Chairman Robert Eaton has resisted Kerkorian’s efforts to persuade Chrysler to change its conservative cash management strategy, and analysts do not expect the company to reverse that course. Jerome York, Kerkorian’s top lieutenant, last week asked Chrysler to place himself and two other mutually agreed-upon people on the board. He also asked Chrysler to ease the provisions of its “poison pill” takeover defense to allow Kerkorian to raise his stake in the auto maker to 20% from 14.1%. If a proxy contest ensues, analysts say, Chrysler should benefit from an earnings recovery early next year. In another development, about 1,100 United Auto Workers members struck a Chrysler glass plant, threatening to disrupt car and truck production at all but one of the auto maker’s North American assembly plants.