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Heh - Ford Motor Company

Back in April of this year I picked up this slightly used Ford F-350 pickup truck.

I had been a General Motors driver for the last thirty years but the current government involvement and their out and out lie about paying off their loan ahead of schedule pissed me off enough to look for another car company. I was running errands last Friday and heard this over the radio. From the Detroit News:

Ford's profit the biggest in 12 years
Ford Motor Co. earned $2.6 billion on higher car and truck sales in the second quarter, its biggest quarterly profit in 12 years, and repaid some of the debt that it took on to ride out the industry downturn.

"We're ahead of where we thought we'd be after this excellent first half, and we expect even better results in 2011," Ford President and Chief Executive Alan Mulally said.

"It appears to us we're going to be able to improve the balance sheet and reduce the debt," he told analysts and reporters Friday.

Compared with its crosstown rivals, Ford made it through the downturn intact, after borrowing $23 billion in late 2006.

But its heavy debt load left Ford at a disadvantage relative to General Motors Co. and Chrysler Group LLC, which shed their debts in bankruptcy.

Now, after five consecutive profitable quarters, Ford repaid $7 billion of debt, trimming interest expenses by more than $470 million.

Chief Financial Officer Lewis Booth said the company expects to go from having net debt to a positive cash position sometime next year. "That's a strong statement about how the business is going," he said.

So General Motors Co. and Chrysler Group LLC welshed on their debt by declaring bankruptcy and then attached themselves to the government teat while, in the same time period, Ford payed off a substantial chunk of their debt, are earning record profits and are manufacturing an excellent product. I have now had the truck for three months and just love it and love giving the support to a company that is being run well... Posted by DaveH at July 25, 2010 3:06 PM