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Ford 1Q Loss Narrows As Revenue Rises
"I think the quarter represented a high point" for the year, said David Healy, an analyst with Burnham Securities.
Although the new crossovers and heavy-duty pickup trucks are off to a good start, Healy attributed Ford's sales decline to its plan to reduce low-profit sales to rental car companies and to sluggish sales of its older models.
  Ford F-250 pickup trucks sit on the lot beneath the blue oval at a Ford dealership in the south Denver suburb of Littleton, Colo., on Sunday, April 22, 2007. Ford Motor Co. on Thursday, April 26, 2007, posted a first-quarter net loss of $282 million, a vast improvement over the $1.4 billion it lost in the first quarter of 2006. (AP Photo/David Zalubowski) (David Zalubowski - AP) Partnership
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• Without special items, primarily restructuring costs, Ford said it would have lost $171 million, or 9 cents per share, in the latest quarter compared with an operating profit of $223 million, or 12 cents per share, a year ago.
The loss excluding special items was far less than the loss of 60 cents per share consensus forecast by 16 analysts polled by Thomson Financial. The estimate typically excludes special items.
Despite the overall improvement, Ford said its core business in North America lost $614 million on automotive operations before taxes for the quarter, wider than the $442 million it lost in the first quarter of last year. North American automotive revenue dropped from $19.8 billion in the first quarter of last year to $18.2 billion.
Ford also posted a pretax loss in its Asia Pacific and Africa operations, but it made a pretax profit in Europe and South America, and in its financial services sector.
The Premier Automotive Group, which includes Jaguar, Land Rover, Volvo and Aston Martin, reported a record pretax profit of $402 million for the quarter due largely to Volvo and Land Rover. Ford earned $22 million from its stake in Mazda, the company said.
"We continue to take the necessary steps to implement our turnaround plan and remain committed to our goal of achieving profitability no later than 2009," Mulally said.
Ford is trying to fend off Toyota Motor Corp. to keep the title of the nation's No. 2 automaker. The Dearborn-based company lost $12.7 billion last year and is in the midst of slashing thousands of jobs, closing plants and rolling out new products in an effort to return to profitability.
Ford said Thursday that it shed 18,000 hourly and salaried workers in the first quarter, mainly through early retirement and buyout offers. The separation programs cost the company $874 million for the quarter in North America.
"We achieved these hourly and salary reductions with minimum disruption to the business and continuing quality improvement," Mulally said in the call.
Mulally said that with normal attrition, the company is on track to meet its goals of reducing its North American blue-collar work force by 25,000 to 30,000 by the end of 2008 and 10,000 white-collar workers, most by the end of the first quarter this year.
Mulally also said the company has completed negotiations with the United Auto Workers union on work rule and other changes at nearly all of its plants, making them more productive.
Ford shares rose 32 cents, or 4.1 percent, to close at $8.20 on the New York Stock Exchange. They have traded in a 52-week range of $6.06 to $9.48.
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(This version CORRECTS the "C" in Ford CFO Leclair's name to lower case) )
