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Losses force Ford Motor Co. to turn to making small cars
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More from BusinessFord Motor Co. posted the worst quarterly performance in its history Thursday, losing $8.67 billion in the second quarter.
The company also said it will retool two more North American truck and sport utility vehicle plants to build small, fuel-efficient vehicles, and it announced plans to bring six new small vehicles to North America from Europe by the end of 2012.
The net loss includes $8.03 billion worth of write-offs because the sharp decline in U.S. truck and SUV sales has reduced the value of Ford's North American truck plants and Ford Motor Credit Co.'s lease portfolio. Even excluding those items, Ford lost 62 cents per share, worse than Wall Street expected. Twelve analysts surveyed by Thomson Financial, on average, expected a 27-cent loss per share.
Including the write-downs, Ford lost $3.88 per share in the April-June quarter, compared with net profit of $750 million, or 31 cents per share, in the same quarter a year ago. The second-quarter loss surpassed Ford's previous record quarterly loss, $6.7 billion in the first quarter of 1992.
Second-quarter revenue was $38.6 billion, down $5.6 billion from the year-ago period. Analysts expected $34.6 billion. Ford has been successful selling cars in Europe, and the company is banking on the new European models to boost sales and revenue as it deals with a market shift from trucks to cars brought on by high gasoline prices.
Posted by del on July 28, 2008 at 8:49 a.m. (Suggest removal)
This should have been done long ago. Don't you just love shortsighted US corporations.
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