MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Ford reports quarterly profit in “extremely challenging world”

CEO Allan Mulally said progress has been made in transforming the corporation

Ford, the only one of the “Big Three” United States carmakers not to have gone bankrupt, has reported a quarterly profit of 2.3billion US dollars. However, the profit was largely due to one-off gains related to debt restructuring, with demand for new cars remaining weak.

Excluding the gain, Ford said it made an operating loss of 424 million US dollars.

Ford boss Alan Mulally said the business environment was “extremely challenging” worldwide.

Despite the economic downturn, Ford said it gained market share in all the regions in which it sells cars when compared with the second quarter of 2008.

“While the business environment remained extremely challenging around the world, we made significant progress on our transformation plan,” said Mr Mulally, Ford's chief executive.

“Our underlying business is growing progressively stronger as we introduce great new products that customers want and value, while continuing to aggressively restructure our business and strengthen our balance sheet.”

The figures were better than analysts had expected and Ford shares rose 7.5% to $6.98 in New York.

The profit figure included a 3.4 billion gain related to measures taken to restructure its debt obligations, Ford said. Revenue declined 11 billion to 27 billion.

Although Ford has managed without a US government bail-out, it has not escaped unscathed from the financial crisis and economic downturn.

The company has cut tens of thousands of jobs and closed factories to reduce costs.

It is also considering the sale of its Swedish brand Volvo to raise cash, after already selling off its luxury European brands Jaguar and Aston Martin.