Lewis Booth's insight on Ford finanical performance and stock activity

[weiweishen]

With Lewis Booth

Chief Financial Officer

Ford Motor Company

Lewis Booth, Ford's Chief Financial Officer, provides valuable insight on the company's recent financial performance, including the recent activity of Ford's stock price, as well as what it will take to maintain Ford's momentum. On a lighter note, Booth discusses which vehicle might replace his much talked about blue Transit Connect with racing stripes. Watch the full video interview on @Ford Online.

 

Q: How does Ford maintain its momentum?

A: We recognize there are some headwinds in the latter part of the year. Those headwinds are things like commodities, we're launching a lot of product toward the end of the year so we have a lot of costs associated with that. That's not untypical of any year. Every year has headwinds. I think what we're increasingly proving, as a company, is that we're ready to tackle those headwinds and offset them and find alternatives. I think the message the market missed was that we pulled ahead our guidance from next year, where we said in January that our 2011 profits would be solid along with positive operating cash flow. We felt so good about the first quarter that we said that our profits would be solid in 2010, so that's a year earlier. The market sort of almost discounted that, so that was a really important step. I think the other thing that is going on is that the market has stopped worrying about us as our potential for failure. They've stopped worrying about our ability to survive. They've seen a very good quarter. Now what they're expecting to see from us is continued improvement. This is our time. This is the crucial part of the recovery at Ford because all of us have to demonstrate now that we can continue to grow the business as we come out of the economic catastrophe that we've been through, that we can grow the business and permanently change the direction of Ford because we've had, for such a long period, episodic pressures with near-death and just surviving and continue to head down a steady path of contracting the business. This is where we are going to turn that corner and not just survive, but rebuild the business.

 

To watch the full video Q&A, click here.

http://www.at.ford.com/news/multimedia/Pages/default.aspx?t=v&id=390

Edited April 30, 2010 by weiweishen

[Edstock]

"This is the crucial part of the recovery at Ford because all of us have to demonstrate now that we can continue to grow the business as we come out of the economic catastrophe that we've been through, that we can grow the business and permanently change the direction of Ford because we've had, for such a long period, episodic pressures with near-death and just surviving and continue to head down a steady path of contracting the business. This is where we are going to turn that corner and not just survive, but rebuild the business."

! :happy feet:

Too bad "Big Ed" at GM has too big a head to learn this lesson.

[Consult1]

"This is the crucial part of the recovery at Ford because all of us have to demonstrate now that we can continue to grow the business as we come out of the economic catastrophe that we've been through, that we can grow the business and permanently change the direction of Ford because we've had, for such a long period, episodic pressures with near-death and just surviving and continue to head down a steady path of contracting the business. This is where we are going to turn that corner and not just survive, but rebuild the business."

! :happy feet:

Too bad "Big Ed" at GM has too big a head to learn this lesson.

 

Perhaps an accurate (current financial) perspective of the Company's transformation, however, Q&A re: sustainability of financial performance of the Company lies with the CEO, not the CFO. While I appreciate the CFO's conservative view of current performance (managing expectations?), the relevance to future performance resides directly with the fellow charged with delivering same. It was disappointing that the significant Q1 result were effectively 'managed down' to 'non-event' status. Listening to the Q&A, If I closed my eyes, I'd swear somebody flipped a switch and we reverted to an old model: a financial Company that also happens to build cars.

Edited May 1, 2010 by Consult1