This just in as reported by The Associated Press, Ford Motor Company announced a $100 million dollar 2008 first quarter profit, largely on strong sales from Europe and South America. It is no secret that the U.S. economy is slowing and the auto industry is feeling the pressure, just ask your neighborhood car dealer.
As reported it was Ford's first profitable quarter since the second quarter of 2007 after a full year loss of $2.7 Billion dollars in 2007, Ford CEO Alan Mulally cautioned that the remainder of 2008 will be tough but feels that Ford's turnaround plan is working.
In Ford's statement it lowered it's U.S vehicle vehicle sales forecast .
Excluding special items, the company said it earned $525 million after taxes, or 20 cents per share, this beat Wall Street's expectations, most analyst predicted a loss. The profit is more significant because Ford Motor Company had a pretax loss of $45 million dollars in Ford's core North American auto market.
Ford had offered early retirement and buyout offers to it's employees and was disappointed that it only received 4200 takers, much fewer than expected. A company spokesman Mark Truby said that Ford may offer additional buyout and early retirement packages on a plant by plant basis to help reduce its blue-collar work force.
Ford reported first quarter revenue was down to $39.4 billion from $43 billion dollars a year ago partly due to the sale of Jaguar-Land Rover and Aston Martin sales divisions. If you exclude the sale, the revenue would have been up a little bit the company reported.
Ford went on to state that it made $257 million in pretax profit from South America, up from $113 million a year ago. and in Europe, it made $739 million. Volvo had a pretax loss of $151 million, as compared with a profit of $94 million dollars a year ago. This was the first time that Ford broke out earnings for Volvo.
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