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Hackett to retire 1 October, Jim Farley to become CEO


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3 hours ago, akirby said:


Sure - real easy to just throw a couple billion dollars into a new plant to generate the exact same revenue and profit.

 

Not saying it wouldn’t be nice but it’s not financially feasible.  

 

Call it a GigaFactory...

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2 hours ago, akirby said:


As disastrous as the launch was it was nothing more than a temporary blip.

 

The explorer is still a quality control disaster.  Missing parts still, transmissions failing, horrible shifting, trans fluid leaks, warning lights going off like crazy, ac failures,  faulty cameras and wiring..  the list goes on and we are just 1 year of production.  

 

This is far worse then the 5th gen in 2011.

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From the sites Ford banned? and some commentary:

 

 

Ford CEO Jim Hackett Is Out

 

Ford CEO Jim Hackett is retiring, the company announced today. He will be succeeded by Jim Farley, the company’s COO, on October 1, in a succession that seems a little earlier than expected.

 

Farley, 58,  was elevated to COO in February. Many assumed then that it was a precursor to his eventual elevation to the top job. I don’t think many thought it would be this soon.

 

https://jalopnik.com/ford-ceo-jim-hackett-is-out-1844604414

 

mdensch:

Agreed. Fields was a car guy, he got it and had a passion for it. I honestly don’t think Hackett ever understood that the company he headed made products people feeling deeply about. Cars aren’t file cabinets.

 

AnalogMan:

This was inevitable. He was given one and only one mandate from the Ford family: jack up the stock price. As much as possible, as quickly as possible, doing whatever it took. He didn’t do that. Ford’s stock price is down about 50% over the past year, and is half of what it was when he got the job. I’m surprised they gave him as much time as they did. But then, it’s because he’s a personal friend of Bill Ford Jr., which is why he got picked for the job in the first place.

Maybe this is one of those times when the stock market knew what it was doing, and saw through his charade of cutting employees, cutting products (like eliminating cars from the US market), and name games with the Mustang Mach-E. What company has ever shrunk to greatness? This is what happens when you take someone whose experience was selling metal office furniture and make them CEO of a car company. It’s a little more complicated to build and successfully sell cars than desks and filing cabinets.

 

I don’t know if Farley will be any better. I’m sure he has the same single objective the Ford family gave to Hackett - get the stock price up. Fast.

Ford will be sold within two years. Maybe sooner. The buyer will be either VW (most likely) or BMW. The Ford family wants out of the car business, and the higher the stock price, the more money they’ll make on the deal.

8
AnalogMan
Agreed with everything except that last paragraph not because you’re wrong, I have no idea, but because this is a huge prediction that is going to take a lot to accomplish.
 
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And TFL:
 
Ford CEO Jim Hackett Announces Plan To Step Down — COO Jim Farley Will Take Over On October 1

 

In a surprising announcement Tuesday, three-year Ford CEO Jim Hackett will step down October 1, as the company’s massive restructuring plan has so far failed to pass muster with shareholders.

 

https://www.tflcar.com/2020/08/ford-ceo-jim-hackett-stepping-down-news/

 

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Tozzol5.jpg

 

Maybe Roman will get freed by Farley now? TFL is still in Ford jail it appears.

 
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Couple more points.

 

From Yahoo Finance:

 

Ford’s Jim Hackett had a bold vision—but couldn’t improve this all-important financial metric

 

A key metric shows that Ford’s numbers got worse under Hackett’s leadership. The yardstick is Cash Operating Return on Assets, or COROA, developed by leading accounting expert Jack Ciesielski. COROA measures the cash generated from all the factories, inventories and other assets invested in the business. Those total assets are the denominator. For the numerator, COROA uses cash from operations, but eliminates the effects of leverage and taxes by adding back cash payments for both to get “Operating Cash Flows.” What you see from COROA is a pure measure of management’s stewardship of all the dollars entrusted to them by shareholders.

For 2016, the year before Hackett took charge, Ford had an average of $266 billion in total assets on its balance sheet (including accumulated depreciation). It recorded $19.85 billion in cash from operations from those investments for a return of 9.2%. By Big Manfacturing standards, that number seemed middling. It trailed auto parts-maker Borg Warner by a wide margin, but almost matched conglomerate Danaher (9.2%) and edged out GM (8.6%).

 

But over the three years spanning 2017 to 2019, while Ford swelled its balance sheet, it produced less cash from all the extra investment. Over that period, its total average assets rose from $266 to $290 billion, or 9%, while its operating cash flow fell by $2.2 billion, to $17.64 billion. In other words, it posted a negative return of 8.5% on the $26 billion in added assets. As a result, its COROA dropped from 9.2% in 2016, to 8.2% in 2019.

 

[cut]

 

That Ford has long been generating inadequate returns on capital, and that those returns are falling, is reflected in its stock price. At the close of 2019, its shares stood at $9.30, their level in 1987. In the pandemic crisis, Ford’s shares have sunk to $6.84, dropping its market cap by one-fourth to just $27.2 billion.

 

Even at these levels, though, Ford is not a buy. The reason is fundamental: It’s stuck in a ferociously competitive, low-margin business. It also faces governments and unions that pressure automakers to keep outdated factories running to preserve jobs, and impose three levels of regulations governing emissions, safety and fuel efficiency. Plus, competitors are constantly launching hot new models, and matching or beating them requires multibillion investments that take years to pay off.

 

Ford’s best option for getting profitable is getting smaller. It can get there if it focuses in two areas, its highly lucrative SUV and truck brands, and electric cars that promise big growth in the years ahead. That course would force Ford to forget about building a glorious future to match its storied past—and instead settle for building a steady, reliable vehicle that can stay on the road.

 

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/ford-jim-hackett-had-bold-211518776.html

 

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And Motley:

Ford getting third CEO in four years

When Jim Hackett replaced Mark Fields in 2017, investors were hopeful he would be able to successfully accelerate Ford's shift to the future of transportation and return to the days of profitable growth that have evaded the company since Alan Mulally retired in 2014. After just over three years in the driver's seat, Hackett's run as CEO is set to end on Oct. 1, with, at best, mixed results. 

 

Hackett came in with the explicit goal of accelerating Ford's development of electric and autonomous vehicles and making the company more nimble and profitable. He's achieved the former, but the latter has, so far, evaded the company. Longtime Ford and former Toyota executive Jim Farley has been tapped as Hackett's replacement. Farley has been at Ford since 2007 and was named CFO earlier this year in a move that was expected to be at least partly an audition for the top job down the road. 

 

https://www.fool.com/investing/2020/08/04/sp-500-news-amd-stock-surges-disney-loses-billions.aspx

 

3 CEOs in 4 years? That doesn't sound like that was the plan. 

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21 hours ago, akirby said:

This was always the plan and I’m sure Farley has been making decisions and setting direction behind the scenes for months already.

Hackett was always considered interim at the big house.  I posted a Detroit News link before this post. Pay attention.

\

 

21 hours ago, akirby said:

This was always the plan and I’m sure Farley has been making decisions and setting direction behind the scenes for months already.

 

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16 hours ago, akirby said:

He gave the engineers and designers carte Blanche to make them best in class.  That’s something that neither Mulally or Fields came close to doing on the product development side.  In fact it’s probably the first time it’s happened outside of mustang and f150.  And expect that to continue.  That is his legacy - uncompromising best in class products.  

 

I call BS on your comment on Mulally - there's too much revisionist history around here on Mulally lately.

 



When Mulally first came to Ford, he asked around for the names of the company's brightest employees, and then got them together to begin working on a new vision for the business. "The team decided that every new vehicle from then on had to be best in its class," Mulally said. They then shared that goal with every stakeholder and with the press.

 

https://www.inc.com/marli-guzzetta/how-alan-mulally-turned-ford-around-inc5000.html

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47 minutes ago, Harley Lover said:

 

I call BS on your comment on Mulally - there's too much revisionist history around here on Mulally lately.

 

 

 

 

https://www.inc.com/marli-guzzetta/how-alan-mulally-turned-ford-around-inc5000.html

Best in class performance and fuel economy were noble aspirations and Ford basically achieved that

by early 2010 but then, it rode downsized EB and 6AT into the ground while other brands caught up to Ford.

 

Is that revisionist or did Ford just go to sleep when it needed to keep improving?

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49 minutes ago, Harley Lover said:

 

I call BS on your comment on Mulally - there's too much revisionist history around here on Mulally lately.

 

I thought Mulally did a great job - I wasn't blaming him at all.   And I could probably concede that the 2013 Fusion was BIC.  But I'm having a hard time remembering any other vehicles developed between 2008 and 2014 that truly went all out to "own the segment" like they're doing with Bronco.   Certainly not the 2011 Explorer or CMAX.

 

I think it all comes down to how much investment they're willing to make in both time and money.   And maybe Bronco is an exception because it's one of the 3 Icons now with F150 and Mustang and it's a sub brand.   I think that's also driven by the focus on higher profit margins.  

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Mulally's 4 "hallmarks" for new product development definitely got things moving in the right direction, but the industry was in such a different place 11 years ago that it's difficult to compare. 

 

Mulally was *absolutely* what Ford needed at the time, and his ability to focus on both the organizational structure and the product portfolio - which were both in shambles - saved Ford from a similar fate as GM and Chrysler. 

 

Unfortunately, his wholesome trust of his inner circle created a vortex in which Fields was moved to the top spot despite several warning signs that he didn't have the meddle to do it. It cannot be overstated just how dire things got under Fields. 

 

Farley is the right guy, and I anticipate he'll have a long, successful tenure. 

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8 minutes ago, PREMiERdrum said:

Mulally's 4 "hallmarks" for new product development definitely got things moving in the right direction, but the industry was in such a different place 11 years ago that it's difficult to compare. 

 

Mulally was *absolutely* what Ford needed at the time, and his ability to focus on both the organizational structure and the product portfolio - which were both in shambles - saved Ford from a similar fate as GM and Chrysler.

 

Knowing what I know about corporate management, I think his biggest achievement was changing the management culture.   I remember the story of his first staff meeting where the head of Europe and the head of North America not only didn't work together they wouldn't even share financial data or be honest about problems that were occurring.  They also had huge binders that their staff probably worked on full time.    Mulally told them to come back next week with only one sheet of paper and to be prepared to share everything with everybody.   The amazing part is that his predecessor allowed that to happen.  

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10 minutes ago, PREMiERdrum said:

Mulally's 4 "hallmarks" for new product development definitely got things moving in the right direction, but the industry was in such a different place 11 years ago that it's difficult to compare. 

 

Mulally was *absolutely* what Ford needed at the time, and his ability to focus on both the organizational structure and the product portfolio - which were both in shambles - saved Ford from a similar fate as GM and Chrysler. 

 

Unfortunately, his wholesome trust of his inner circle created a vortex in which Fields was moved to the top spot despite several warning signs that he didn't have the meddle to do it. It cannot be overstated just how dire things got under Fields. 

 

Farley is the right guy, and I anticipate he'll have a long, successful tenure. 

 

Well said. In addition, Ford was a much different company then and Mulally's objectives were much more involved in dealing with a company that was spread too thin and unable to support the product development costs for so many unprofitable brands. And people wondered by Mulally pushed to drop Mercury and sell off Aston Martin, Land Rover, Jaguar & Volvo. Lincoln survived only at the insistence of the Ford family and their sentimental/emotional ties to Lincoln. 

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14 minutes ago, PREMiERdrum said:

Farley is the right guy, and I anticipate he'll have a long, successful tenure. 

 

Yes sir PREMiERdrum, I agree. Of all senior executives at Ford other than Jim Hackett, Farley seems to best understand the "new world" of the automotive industry. He did good work at Ford Smart Mobility and Argo AI. Car and Driver asked him in an interview "Name a manufacturer that’s really getting it right", Farley's answer was Tesla.

 

Plus Farley's work ethic is unsurpassed. When he was at Toyota, he actually used some of his vacation time to work on the line at the TMMK plant in Kentucky!

 

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26 minutes ago, probowler said:


One of the perks of being family owned. I dig it.

 

Fields was an unlikely champion of Lincoln and invested heavily in it during his time, though this was mainly a vanity project for him to earn brownie points with the family. 

 

Farley shaped a good bit of Lincoln's current placement, and that bodes well for all involved. 

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Lincoln is going to be fine... it's a luxury SUV brand when the market has pivoted totally towards SUV. As long as Ford keeps the product fresh (a big challenge unique to Ford it seems) Lincoln will be fine. 

 

The Ford brand is the one that needs attention. Not so much in the US... the products that are coming should see market share gains and increase profit. It's outside the US that blue oval is a complete mess and shrinking at an alarming rate. If you look at the sales data from most markets, Ford is almost always the brand with largest sales decline in 2020 from among the "Big 8" (VW, Toyota, Hyundai, GM, Ford, Renualt-Nissan, PSA-FCA, Honda). From Europe to Asia to South America, the pattern is the same... And this is on the heel of brand new Fiesta, Focus, Kuga, and Puma launches in many of these markets. What this means is that Ford as a brand is one of the first to get crossed off the consideration list even with fresh new vehicles. This is the legacy of Hackett's "shrink your way to success" plan. It needs to be reversed or Ford will not be selling cars outside North America and Western Europe in another 10 years. 

Edited by bzcat
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It seems bizarre that Ford can't export the #1 truck in America into a world-class truck business.  Not necessarily the F-150 itself, but all the knowledge and experience from that program should allow them dominate every market that needs a work truck.

 

A combination of Transit/Connect/baby pickup, Ranger, and maybe a slightly larger F-100 would make for a nice lineup, no?

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10 minutes ago, probowler said:

It seems bizarre that Ford can't export the #1 truck in America into a world-class truck business.  Not necessarily the F-150 itself, but all the knowledge and experience from that program should allow them dominate every market that needs a work truck.

 

In the U.S., Ford has been so successful with F-Series (especially F-150) over the past decade because they've done a great job marketing the product not as a "work truck", but as a lifestyle vehicle and status symbol. Plus, the U.S. market is distorted by regulations that keep gasoline and diesel fuel prices very inexpensive for a high income industrialized country, and that also favor North American designed and built vehicles. That makes it more difficult for new competitors to join and succeed in this market, and helps keep Ford's position with F-Series strong.

 

Other global markets, except maybe Canada, Mexico, and some places in the Middle East, don't have those characteristics. So the current ICE powered F-Series formula won't work around the world. The introduction of BEV F-150, which will probably meet CO2 regulations around the world easily, might make F-Series a more global product.

 

 

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40 minutes ago, rperez817 said:

 

In the U.S., Ford has been so successful with F-Series (especially F-150) over the past decade because they've done a great job marketing the product not as a "work truck", but as a lifestyle vehicle and status symbol. Plus, the U.S. market is distorted by regulations that keep gasoline and diesel fuel prices very inexpensive for a high income industrialized country, and that also favor North American designed and built vehicles. That makes it more difficult for new competitors to join and succeed in this market, and helps keep Ford's position with F-Series strong.

 

Other global markets, except maybe Canada, Mexico, and some places in the Middle East, don't have those characteristics. So the current ICE powered F-Series formula won't work around the world. The introduction of BEV F-150, which will probably meet CO2 regulations around the world easily, might make F-Series a more global product.

 

 


Very insightful, I never thought of many of those things. I simply thought the F-150 was too large for foreign customer tastes.

Edited by probowler
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33 minutes ago, rperez817 said:

 

Plus, the U.S. market is distorted by regulations that keep gasoline and diesel fuel prices very inexpensive for a high income industrialized country, and that also favor North American designed and built vehicles. That makes it more difficult for new competitors to join and succeed in this market, and helps keep Ford's position with F-Series strong.

 

 

 

 

There are no "regulations" that keep fuel prices low. Prices are driven by market demand and taxes - both state and federal.

 

Each state is free to tax both gasoline and diesel fuel at whatever level it desires. Prices are high in other countries because they levy heavy taxes on fuel (and have varied the level of taxes on gasoline and diesel fuel to drive more customers to buy diesel-powered vehicles, which further distorts the market not only for motor fuel, but also for vehicles).

 

The lower the level of taxation, the less distortion there is in the market, as the retail price is closer to the true market price. Instead of enacting high federal gasoline or diesel fuel taxes, this country has historically chosen to lower demand by regulating vehicle fuel economy through CAFE. 

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4 hours ago, bzcat said:

Lincoln is going to be fine... it's a luxury SUV brand when the market has pivoted totally towards SUV. As long as Ford keeps the product fresh (a big challenge unique to Ford it seems) Lincoln will be fine. 

 

The Ford brand is the one that needs attention. Not so much in the US... the products that are coming should see market share gains and increase profit. It's outside the US that blue oval is a complete mess and shrinking at an alarming rate. If you look at the sales data from most markets, Ford is almost always the brand with largest sales decline in 2020 from among the "Big 8" (VW, Toyota, Hyundai, GM, Ford, Renualt-Nissan, PSA-FCA, Honda). From Europe to Asia to South America, the pattern is the same... And this is on the heel of brand new Fiesta, Focus, Kuga, and Puma launches in many of these markets. What this means is that Ford as a brand is one of the first to get crossed off the consideration list even with fresh new vehicles. This is the legacy of Hackett's "shrink your way to success" plan. It needs to be reversed or Ford will not be selling cars outside North America and Western Europe in another 10 years. 

The only profitable vehicles that Ford sells in Europe and ROW are Transits and Ranger, all the rest barely cover

development and production costs. What we're seeing in those markets is Ford trying to limit the bleeding by

increasing vehicle prices, Ford is literally shrinking its business to profitability but it's now discovering just how

underwater its entire global business has become. God help Ford if it ever asks the same question in the USA.

 

The VW alliance is the salvation of Ford's European and global business, without those guaranteed sales of 

commercial vehicles (vans and pickups) to VW, Ford would have been forced into even more drastic cuts.

Now, the future looks brighter with Ford also accessing VW's MEB electric vehicle toolkit in Europe at least

and staying in front of a tidal wave of change against its ICE business. The next few years are going to be

very interesting indeed.

 

Edited by jpd80
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