Ford Australia recorded the largest financial loss in its history last week, even after a $102 million Federal and State government handout which only accounted for 3.6 per cent of the company’s revenue.
Ford Australia made a $78 million operating loss and a one-off ‘tax impairment and accounting adjustment’ of $212 million for a total loss of $290 million. It has not been that long since the Ford factory’s 2008 record loss of $274 million was surpassed last week, however the company did post a $13 million and $26 million profit in 2009 and 2010 respectively.
The president of Ford Australia, Bob Graziano said the company was fiscally impacted by the rationalization redundancy and pay outs of 250 floor workers compounded by the lower than estimated Falcon sales last year.
Ford Australia was expecting the Ford Focus small car to be made in Australia to boost its revenue and employment numbers, but that was eventually revoked by it’s US parent company that handed production of the small car to their Thailand operations and Ford Australia found itself importing the top-selling vehicle under a Free Trade Agreement.
But, no joy for Ford Australia’s manufacturing operations.
Graziano, insists that Ford Australia is going to be part of the global One Ford plan, which includes aggressively restructuring factories to operate profitably, but based on the sliding sales of the Falcon, that may not happen as readily as expected.
Ford Australia’s revenue fell from $3.3 billion in 2010 to $2.8 billion in 2011 and last year was the seventh consecutive year of declining sales with a drop of 37 per cent to post a total of 85,228 of vehicles sold, a far cry from 135,172 sales in 2004.
If Ford cannot turn the downward spiral soon then, as we wrote in this column last year, the Falcon will be axed in 2013 in favour of importing or assembling the US designed Taurus range in Australia.