All was held back until after our invol. vacation and Easter weekend but all He$$ is about to break loose. Ford is hemorrhaging cash and to be fair Mr. Hackett has no choice. 20% salary cuts, furloughs, and 27 - 30+ folks are about to be shown the door. I'm a 21 yr veteran of Ford and certainly no groupie for Jim Hackett or Bill Ford but what choice do they have except to cut expenses with a slash and burn urgency.....It's that or bankruptcy by mid June/July. Assets will be sold including Ford Credit who is still turning some profit and worth selling to some bank with available liquity. Sorry to be so negatve. These are certainly unique times to tell you Grandchildren about. Prayers for the company, those impacted, and those who have to make these decisions.
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Life is strange. The gang that architected who would be selected for SRD in 2019 in our department are now asking those they SRDed about employment prospects at their new employers. They must be feeling insecure. Or they are finding very few sc-aps to fight over these days. It would be all upside to Ford it the entire gang (LL5 and LL6) was released. All downside for any company who allows these vipers into their nest.
LL3 mentioned for everyone to plan financially for 4 days on 1 day off unpaid 20% pay cut.
Some areas have forced contractors to take every Friday off unpaid. But not all.
Maybe those were the test groups and others are to follow.
They need to get serious and start taking actions. Cut 401k match, cut OT pay, cut non-critical workers, cut vanity projects.
Will anything be announced Thursday morning regarding personnel measures? Last Huddle referenced “everyone absorbs a little.”
Should be interesting...
I came to know still so many contract employees have just a friday off furloughed.........what the heck saving is that going to bring ford....bankruptcy by july is guaranteed......
All will be announced in Thursday's huddle.
For single payer pensions (like Ford) PBGC is rock solid. Some folks get confused because the PBGC multi-employer program is in deep trouble.
Following up on the last comment, an opinion column about accessing capital in these troubled times: Is Ford For Sale?
https://www.forbes.com/sites/jimcollins/2020/04/13/is-ford-for-sale/#6271b3fe4394
Agree with OP
Basic math skills enable anyone with a bit of time on their hands to calculate when Ford hits minimum amount of $ to keep the company running. It is sooner than what many think.
Most assuredly there is scrambling at the glass house to find additional loan sources and plans for cutting operational costs are being finalized. Anyone seen a clear concise plan to profitability yet? Hmmm
The glass house occupants clearly do not want to take the medicine that comes with handout (reduction in exec compensation).
As of April 9, the company had about $30 billion in cash on its balance sheet, including
$15.4 billion of proceeds from borrowings last month against two existing credit lines..
https://www.at.ford.com/en/homepage/news-and-clipsheet/news/2020/4/ford-provides-preliminary-first-quarter-2020-financial-results–.html
How solvent is the PBGC now and one year from now?
They are 100% protected up to the PBGC maximum. The maximum is determined by age. For most of the PBGC maximum is over $60k.
What happens to the pension plan if Ford goes bankrupt? Are the current pensioners protected and will continue to receive their full pension?
We will have to wait and see what happens. I agree with original poster to some degree, however there will be government intervention that steps in. Lets face it, auto is the largest industry which gives equity to millions of people. I don't think there are too many industries like that (not even the silicon valley stuff can say they make as big of an impact; minimal equity sharing, just a handful of millionaires and billionaires). The OEMs and their employees, the suppliers and their employees, the dealers and their employees, etc. You look at most top tier industrialized nations and they have an auto industry (US, Japan, Germany, China, South Korea, etc).
Also cars are the second most expensive item anyone buys next to a house; the U.S. cannot afford to walk away from that. Think of all the lost tax revenue not only from payroll taxes, but the sales tax revenue. And say the government is stupid and does nothing; history will repeat itself. When the Soviet Union fell, you had all these brilliant scientists, engineers, industrialists, etc that were dedicated to the war machine with nothing to do. They ultimately seized power in the form of organized crime (don't believe me look up the PHDs involved in the Russian Mafia) and run the country today. Doubt the power brokers want brilliant minds with tenacity running wild. They could/would figure out how to make it work.
@clg I was part of the SRD last May so I've been long gone. b–tards called me on my drive home telling me to not show up anymore. That's how much class they had.
The good news? I had to leave Michigan and I got a $30k pay raise and now in an industry that's pretty much recession proof. Personally, I'll never buy a Ford again and I encourage friends and family to do the same.
On the other hand, i still have friends at Ford that I keep in touch with and hope for the best for them.
So good luck to you in keeping 'your' job when this crisis lingers through July.
@wmy; what the president does will have no impact on you sorry position, as you are shown the door in a few weeks.
Pray that Ford sells a lot of profitable trucks and SUVs this Fall. Now I understand why Ford wants to bring back a new version of Cash for Clunkers
Ford has $30B after borrowing $15.4B. This provides enough liquidity for Ford to survive unless this crisis extends until the beginning of August per Deutsche Bank.
Deutsche Bank’s Emmanuel Rosner downgraded General Motors Co. for the first time since he initiated coverage on the automaker more than a year ago, warning the carmaker will run low on cash if production shutdowns continue for months.
GM and Ford Motor Co. have only 15 to 17 weeks of liquidity to ride out current conditions before they hit the minimum levels of cash they need to run their business, Rosner said in a report Tuesday.
@hjc before you throw insults at other people, make sure you have your facts straight.
"Trump once claimed that his father gave him a "small loan" of about $1 million to help him get started in the real-estate business, but The Times' analysis found that "Fred Trump actually lent him at least $60.7 million, or $140 million in today's dollars." Much of this loan was never repaid, the report said.
The Times said that if Donald Trump had done nothing but invest the money his father gave him in an index fund that tracks the S&P 500, he'd still be worth about $2 billion today.
Forbes estimates that Trump's net worth is about $3.1 billion."- Business Insider 10/2/2018
I am not the OP but I am confident Ford no longer has $30B.
Upon what are you basing all your doomsday predictions? Ford lost $600 million in the first quarter and has $30 billion of cash on hand.
Big Jim has sharpened his axe and mounted his oxe. The slashing will soon begin, prayers to all that they are able to find new jobs.
@wmy all that was unnecessary. It just shows you how people like to point at others peoples failures because they are failures & losers themselves. He received 1 million from his dad and made it 1 billion. I bet you couldn’t take 100 dollars and make it 100k.
All i did was mention he might open it back up which is fact. Keep your emotions to yourself
@wmy all that was unnecessary. It just shows you how people like to point at others peoples failures because they are failures & losers themselves. He received 1 million from his dad and made it 1 billion. I bet you couldn’t take 100 dollars and make it 100k.
All i did was mention he might open it back up which is fact. Keep your emotions to yourself
@iuy And you believe everything trump says? What I leave in the toilet for my morning constitutional can run the country better than Cheeto McTweeto.
Even the experts are skeptical at when the country can 'officially' open for business. Let alone from:
The "billionaire" who hides his tax returns
The "genius" who hides his college grades
The "businessman" who bankrupts c-sinos and has 13 failed companies
The "playboy" who pays for s-x
The "philanthropist" who defrauded a charity
The "patriot" who dodged the draft and knows more than "his" generals
The "innocent man" who won’t testify and took the 5th 97 times
The "world's greatest memory" until it isn't
The "medical expert" who understands this "stuff" and wants to gut the CDC
The "historian" who said the Continental Army "manned the air" and "took over the airports"
The "weather expert" who took a sharpie to a hurricane map and stares at solar eclipse without shades
Speculation? I read that trump was talking about opening up the economy