The $700 billion bail out

The media outlets have been saturated with news about the $700 billion bail out. The government will create an auction system for each type of security, purchasing a preset dollar amount of securities from the lowest seller. While the congress is sweating the details of this bail out plan, I wonder what would be the strategy for bidding from the seller's stand point... (You'll have to pardon my ignorance, I slept through most of the econ lectures where they talked about auctions.)

Here's my thinking:
If I'm a CEO of a company holding billions of questionable assets, of course I want to get as much money as I can. At the same time, I can't offer the assets at a too high of a price that government don't take it. If too low, I still stand to lose a lot of money and the company could still go bankrupt. Even if the company still is standing, I will have many angry investors asking why I offered it at such a low price. And given the fact that any company taking the bail out package would have executive compensation capped, it would be motivation not to win the auction. Such an interesting conundrum... How about this? I would offer the assets at a high price, knowing full well I won't win. Of course the winning bid offer will be lower than mine. Then I would approach the winner and try to sell my assets to him/her at a discount to what he just sold his/her assets for. This way, I get to keep my exec pay and sell my assets. While the other party basically gets a nice tidy profit courtesy of Uncle Sam!

... or companies could just collude to jack up the auction price.