Ford has reported a net loss of $5.07 for the fourth quarter of 2001, as it braced for a restructuring including tens of thousands of job cuts and the closing of at least five North American plants in a bid to return to profitability.
The fourth-quarter loss compared with a net profit of $1.1 billion in the same period a year earlier.
It closed the books on a horrific year for the world's second-largest car maker, which posted its first annual loss since 1992 due to problems including the Firestone tyre crisis, poor quality, costly recalls and a heated incentives war amid the US economic slowdown.
All of Detroit's Big Three automakers have been hurt by the US recession, overcapacity and growing competition from Asian and European automakers. But Ford, which cut its dividend last week for the second time since October, has been hardest hit by the economic slowdown, dwindling cash reserves, credit losses and shrinking US market share.
Ford Chief Operating Officer Nick Scheele also said Ford would try to raise about $1 billion from the sale of non-core assets this year. Those assets include the Kwik-Fit auto repair chain Ford operates in Europe and two small US-based businesses.
If everything worked according to its plan, Ford would break even in 2002 through $2 billion in pre tax profit improvement this year, and achieve $9 billion by the middle of the decade.
But the plan assumes that the US market will continue to support sales of 16 million new vehicles a year, and that market share for the Ford brand will hold steady at 19 per cent - even though Ford is cutting models and has no new major vehicles before 2004.