In the next few mins, Alan Mulally from Boeing is going to be annouced as the new CEO. Bill Ford stays as a chairman.

 

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http://money.cnn.com/2006/09/05/news...ford/index.htm

 

Is this good or bad?

 

I think it's good. Just because your name is on the building doesn't mean you're the best man for the job. The Fords should be more like overseers of their company as opposed to the ones calling the shots. Hire a professional to do it right.

 

Perhaps, but I would assume that professional should work in that industry.

IIRC, he was one of the guys who helped Boeing turn around, which is nice. However, hes gotta be acclimated to the company, learn the plans, and probably formulate a new one. Thats probably gonna be in years not months.

This is even more pathetic because if given the key to the parts bin half the people on this board could put together several models that would fill the big gaps in the lineup and generate traffic.

Of course if you keep cutting away capacity, it wont matter if they get there head out of their *** product wise because they wont have any money or room, to build anything.

 

Good.

Mullaly headed the 777 development group. The 777 has been an incredible success for Boeing, putting its closest competitor, the Airbus 340 to shame. I suppose FoMoCo is hoping he will do the same for it. Mullaly was passed over for the Boeing CEO position a while back, and was probably motivated to send out a few resumes.

 

CEO turnover has been high at Ford since the 1980's:


5 years- William Clay Ford Jr. — 2001-2006
2 years- Jacques Nasser — 1999-2001
5 years- Alex Trotman — 1993-1998
3 years- Harold “Red” Poling — 1990-1993
5 years- Donald Petersen — 1985-1990
6 years- Phillip Caldwell — 1979-1985
19 years- Henry Ford II — 1960-1979
42 years- Henry Ford — 1903-1945

It's appears that CEOs (except for Ford 1 and Ford 2) who attained their position at the end of an economic recession and/or during periods of economic expansions lasted longer then those CEO's who came in right before or during a recession.

Sometimes timing plays a key part of the success of failure of a CEO, but you can't feel too bad for any them since they all tend to have a "Golden Parachute" clause in their contract if for some reason they get pushed out of the plane @ 10,000 Ft

I would expect the new Ford CEO Alan Mulally (ex-Boeing guy) will only last a few years at most since he's already familiar with planes and parachutes.

 

BAD!!!

Although Rick Wagoner is essentially an accountant, he's been in the auto industry (General Motors in particular) his entire life. Everyone in upper GM management are car industry people.

Over at Chrysler, again, all run by car industry people.

Now Ford hires an aerospace executive to run the company, and is getting advice from a banker?

The last automotive company to hire it's top guns from outside the industry was GM in the 1990s with Ron Zarella and his group. All successful in their former areas, but none with an inkling of automobile experience.

At least GM was healthy when they took over & GM made money during their middle years at the company. But towards the end, GM was devoid of new products and had an over-reliance on trucks and SUVs that they are only just now coming out of.

Almost every auto executive who has commented on this has stated that you can't just plug anyone in to run a car company. It takes not just the ability to allocate resources, but also a feel for the market which moves in cycles, the realization that automobiles is an emotional business at the retail level, not a cerebrial one. Although product is most important, there's going to be times when the best move isn't to cut at one end, but spend to create something new. Dieter Zetche had an uphill battle doing this when he ran Chrysler, Rick Wagoner's had to fight to do this till recently, even Philip Cadwell & Don Peterson had to do this at Ford.

I've said it quite a few times. If you own Ford stock.......BAIL!

Doesn't tell the whole story. Not by a long shot.

Henry's 1 & 2 had their names on the building, and ran the place like it was their own kingdom..... which it was.

Henry 1 was replaced by Henry 2 when he was no longer capable of running the family business.

Henry 2 was FORCED to give up running the Ford Motor company when Ford was tethering on the edge of collasping. the board decided to give it to capable hands outside the family, Philip Caldwell. He ran the company till he reached mandatory retirement age.

After Cadwell saved Ford from oblivion through the hail-mary play of the new "jellybean" look, Don Peterson took the ball and made "constant improvements" part of Ford's quality push.

Peterson retired and handed the ball to Red Poling, who was already pushing retirement age. Poling handed off to Trotman, who was young enough to last awhile till he passed to Nasser.

Nasser should have been CEO for a very, very long time, but only lasted 2 years before Bill Ford realized only a family member could restore credibility after Firestone and all the people Nasser rubbed the wrong way that Ford needed to depend on.

Bill saw his role as temporary, even when he 1st took over, and he ended up stuck with it (last year he came out & said he was looking for someone else to take over).


I agree, though for less clever reasons.

I think the guy will oversee the shrinking of Ford, the sell offs of it's divisions, and it's probable merger with some other maker or financier. By the time the dust settles, I expect that he would have made his share of gaffes because he's unfamiliar with the automobile market, and would be moved out or resigns.

 

I agree 100%. I would expect that most of what you stated could happen within 3 years or less.

Then YipEEEEEEEE!!!

 

Well, no not yet. Ford is up almost 5% in afterhours trading on this news. Chances are that trend will continue tomorrow.

 

A stock can go up while the company itself goes down and vice versa. Investors might come to the conclusion that Ford is worth more being sold-off and disassembled and think the new CEO is the man who can do it since he has no emotional attachment to the Ford's family company and/or the car business in general.

So Ford as we know can go into the gutter while the stock price shoots for the moon.

Time will tell.

 

Oh, absolutely. I made that previous post solely with short term financial gains in mind.

 

Anyone smart would have bailed long ago. At this point, someone might as well hold on and see if it rebounds like GM's stock did.

At this point, I don't think anyone has a chance of steering the ship. It doesn't seem like there is sufficient cash on hand to perform GM-style buyouts (and I remain unconvinced that such buyouts are a significant key to success), any work on new products won't hit showrooms for a few more years, and we're heading into an economic downturn. Ford's short-term survival - and I think GM's as well - hinges on factors outside of their control. I remain pessimistic, but that's the job of an engineer.

 

If the guy is from boeing I hope he sues Saab and takes their stupid born from jets line away.