Ford reports $40m loss

There's an old 'rule' in PR -- you keep your bad news for late on Friday afternoon. Ford Australia kept its bad (but expected) news until late last Friday afternoon -- 5:32pm to be exact.

At that time the carmaker announced a net after-tax loss of $40.3 million for the 2006 fiscal year. The loss compares to an after-tax profit of $148.2 million in 2005.

In a year when large cars and medium SUVs (petrol-engined ones at least) did not perform well, Ford lost both market share and volume. Its sales dropped over 14,000 units to 114,965 vehicles. Market share dropped from 12.7 to 11.9 per cent.

Ford Australia President, Tom Gorman said in the statement accompanying the financials: "This was an extremely challenging year for Ford in Australia. Numerous external factors had an impact on our overall business, including consumer demand moving away from large family sedans, which drove a reduction in our sales volume.

"To counter this shift, we embarked on decisive actions to realign our workforce and better position Ford Australia for the future, which resulted in a significant one-time restructuring cost. However, Ford remains committed to investment in future products," said Gorman.

The "restructuring cost" was not detailed by Ford. The company's net sales revenue in 2006 was in excess of $600m short of 2005's total and the lowest since 2002.

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