Industry News
Ford chairman rules out Chapter 11
6th April 2006
Speaking at a luncheon meeting of the Automotive Industry Action Group in Detroit this week, Ford Motor Co. chairman and CEO Bill Ford said yesterday that bankruptcy was not an option for his company, whose North American automotive business is losing market share and lost $1.6bn last year, although Ford’s global profits reached $2bn. Ford recently announced a North American restructuring plan, which involves the loss of up to 30,000 jobs and the closure of 14 US plants over the next six years.
"We're acutely aware of the state of our industry, of the state of a lot of the companies we do business with, and frankly, our own deteriorating ratings with the ratings agencies, and so we're working very hard on the fundamentals of our business," said Mr Ford. "We've got one big problem and it's the U.S. auto business, and we're going to fix that, and when we fix that this discussion will disappear."
(Source: AP report by Lee-Ann Durbin, covered in US media)
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