Ever since the negotiations between the government and Chrysler's debtholders began to bog down, ultimately leading to today's bankruptcy announcement, I've been trying to figure out who the holdouts are. Big banks that took TARP funds accepted the government's offer, but a group of smaller players, including a trio of hedge funds specializing in distressed debt refused to play ball.

A previously unknown consortium of debtholders—calling themselves "The Committee of Chrysler Non-TARP Lenders" (yes, it sounds like the name was invented sometime between midnight and dawn this morning) and saying that they're composed of "approximately 20" small investors—released a statement prior to the president's "new lease on life" bankruptcy announcement. The group says it represents "many of the country's teachers unions, major pension and retirement plans and school endowments who have invested through us in senior secured loans to Chrysler." Their total exposure is $1 billion, out of a total of $6.9 billion in secured Chrysler debt.

Among the CCNTL—now that they have a name, they should also have an acronym ("Com-Sin-Tel?")—is OppenheimerFunds, which is part of MassMutual, a company that last year declined TARP funds. CCNTL may represent teachers and schools, but Oppenheimer manages 529 college savings accounts, and several states are so enraged with the dreadful bond gambles that the firm has taken that they've begun investigating them. Oppenheimer holds Chrysler debt in its Senior Floating Rate B Fund (XOSBX), which was down almost 30 percent in 2008. The fund itself is now worth $1.2 billion, with Chrysler's debt making up 1.1 percent, or $13,200,000, reduced from a larger holding in late 2008. Was Oppenheimer looking at a wipeout on its Chrysler investment? Did its fiduciary responsibility to investors include functioning as hedge fund? As part of CCNTL, it evidently offered to take 40 percent on its debt, which of course it had acquired as junk in the first place. The government said no, the Chapter 11 filing ensued, and the president wasted no time in chastising the holdouts as a "small group of speculators."

Speculators—that could be the magic word. Chrysler holdout creditors may have been playing for bankruptcy all along. But what was formerly under wraps is now finally coming out into the open.