Although Ford was able to sidestep bankruptcy and has actually been growing its market share over the past few months, the Dearborn-based automaker is expected to announce a second quarter loss on Thursday. The second quarter’s red ink will mark Ford’s fifth straight quarterly loss.
Ford has managed to get a handle on slipping sales – only seeing a decrease of about 10 percent in June – but the Blue Oval is still learning to cope with a depressed U.S. market. In addition to its fifth straight quarterly loss, Ford is also expected to announce a second quarter cash burn. Ford burned through $3.7 billion during the first quarter of 2009.
Despite the expected loss, Ford CEO Alan Mulally says the company is still on track to become profitable by 2011. “We have a sufficient amount of liquidity to finance our entire transformation,” Mulally told Automotive News. “As we continue our road to profitability the cash flow will just accelerate the improvement of our balance sheet.”
Ford ended the first quarter with $21.3 billion in cash on hand.
