Dearborn, Jan 22: Ford Motor Co. reported a smaller fourth-quarter net loss on Tuesday, as cost cutting efforts helped stem the red ink in its automotive unit and the financing arm booked a healthy profit. The results capped a tough year for the world's second-largest automaker, as it launched a restructuring plan just as General Motors Corp. started a price war to regain U.S. market share. While GM has seen pricing weaken but profits grow, Ford was able to raise prices in the fourth quarter but couldn't convert that advantage to profits.
Looking ahead, Ford forecast a healthy first-quarter profit of 20 cents a share, well above analysts' consensus estimates. Analysts have been slow to embrace Ford's full-year earnings target for 2003 of 70 cents a share, saying its estimates rely on overly rosy projections of its U.S. market share and pricing power. But Ford Chairman and Chief Executive Bill Ford Jr. said the company's fourth-quarter performance, along with its sped-up cost cutting, would produce results.
Ford's net loss for the fourth quarter totaled $130 million, or 7 cents a share, compared with a net loss of $5.1 billion last year as it launched its turnaround plan with a $4 billion charge. For all of 2002, Ford reported a net loss of $980 million, or 54 cents a share, compared with a loss of $5.1 billion in 2001 excluding discontinued businesses. Bureau Report