Or , after reading this story in the Wall Street Journal, at least a fan of Alan Mulally, the CEO. As a voyeur of the American auto industry crisis, it's hard not to notice how often GM and Chrysler seem to stumble and bumble in, out and around bankruptcy. And how Ford has managed to mostly do the right thing and make smarter choices than their Detroit neighbors. At first I thought it was because Mulally was an outsider but, then again, so is Ed Whiteacre ( former Chairman and CEO of AT&T) and so was Bob Nardelli (former CEO of The Home Depot) who was brought in by Cerebus Capital to run Chrysler after they acquired it. Sergio Marchionne is a certainly a Detroit outsider albeit not an automotive industry outsider as the CEO of Fiat.
So while outsiders now abound in Detroit and the American auto industry, what is it that makes
BusinessWeek story so interesting is how so not like a car guy Mulally comes off as. Which is probably why Ford continues to be a better story than the rest of the American auto industry (although I'm pulling hard for all of them and even starting to feel a bit optimistic about GM, too). Ed Whiteacre, in particular, seems like he could have had an entire career at GM and doesn't seem that different from Rick Wagoner and is only having more success because he doesn't own the baggage of too many years at the same company. I don't know if he's really doing much that's so different but he is just free to do it.
But the big difference, I think, is that because Ford didn't take bailout money, Ford can continue to run itself like a car company while the others have to run themselves as a government subsidiary. I don't think there's many people, if any, that think that having to include government bureaucracy with giant legacy corporate bureaucracy is going to do anyone any good, particularly the public. And that's the other difference between Ford and the other companies: Ford is still working for it's owners, chiefly shareholders. The other companies are working for the government; how inspiring.
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DETROIT—Ford Motor Co. on Tuesday reported a $2.1 billion first-quarter profit, said it will deliver a "solid profit" for the year and boosted its second-quarter North America production by another 30,000 vehicles.
Ford Chief Financial Officer Lewis Booth said the auto maker should achieve a 2010 profit greater than the first-quarter results as consumers continue to buy as the U.S. economy recovers. The auto industry, however, will face a more challenging second half from rising interest rates, higher commodity prices and an expected sales drop in Europe.
"We remain cautiously optimistic about positive signs emerging in the global economy while knowing the recovery is fragile and the global auto industry continues to deal with excess capacity," Ford Chief Executive Alan Mulally said in a statement.
Ford will now produce 625,000 new cars and trucks during the second quarter which is a 39% increase over the same time period a year earlier. The increase, the auto maker said, reflects "strong consumer demand" and the need to replenish dealer lots.
The Dearborn, Mich.-based auto maker also said its credit arm's profit for the year will be about even with the $2 billion in profit reported last year. Ford Motor Credit reported a first-quarter profit of $541 million compared with a $13 million loss for the same period a year earlier.
The results cap a week of image boosting news for the U.S. auto makers as Toyota Motor Co. continued to struggle with vehicle problems. General Motors Co. repaid its $8.1 billion in loans it received from the U.S. and Canadian governments while Chrysler Group LLC turned in an operating profit of $143 million in the first quarter. An Associated Press-GfK poll also found slightly more Americans believe the U.S. builds a better-quality vehicle than Asian auto makers.
Excluding one-time items, Ford earned 46 cents exceeding the average analyst estimate of 31 cents a share based on a survey by Thomson Reuters.
Rising consumer confidence coupled with heavy incentives offered by Toyota generated a buying buzz during the first three months of the year as people returned to showrooms in the U.S. Ford has also been riding a wave of customer appreciation for its decision to forgo government bailouts and not file for bankruptcy protection.
Ford's European unit was helped by filling the last of its new vehicle order backlog caused by the incentives offered in various countries during their own "cash for clunkers" programs. European auto industry sales are now expected to begin falling starting this month.
Ford finished the first quarter with $25.3 billion in automotive gross cash, an increase of $400 million since the end of 2009. Ford's automotive debt was $34.3 billion.
The auto maker reported a pre-tax operating profit in all of its business units. The North America division, the heart of Ford's operations, led the group with $1.2 billion compared with a loss of $665 million for the same period a year earlier. Revenue was $14.1 billion, an increase from $10 billion a year earlier.
Ford left its 2010 U.S. industry sales expectation unchanged at a range of 11.5 million to 12.5 million new vehicles.
An interactive Ford time line. http://www.thebigmoney.com/articles/history-lesson/2010/04/29/how-ford-came-back
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