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Mulally rejects a Ford near-term alliance

Amy Wilson

DETROIT -- New Ford Motor Co. CEO Alan Mulally today ruled out any immediate alliance with Renault-Nissan, saying such a partnership would send Ford in the "wrong direction."

After alliance talks between General Motors and Renault-Nissan collapsed this month, Renault-Nissan said it remained open to a North American partner.

But in a Monday interview with Automotive News, Mulally said he can't imagine reaching out to Renault-Nissan. Ford instead needs to concentrate on its Way Forward restructuring plan.

Mulally spoke after Ford announced a $5.8 billion net loss in the third quarter.

"The most important thing we need to do is remove complexity and complication and enhance focus and clear visibility on the plan and the status against the plan," Mulally said. "And, boy, linking up with somebody, just to me, would take us in the awfully wrong direction."

Ford would "answer the phone" if another automaker were to call about partnership opportunities, Mulally said. But that hasn't happened. Mulally said he has had no contact with Renault-Nissan CEO Carlos Ghosn.

Mulally allowed that Ford's situation puts it in a never-say-never position to alliance talks down the road: "The world can change, but right now I like our focus."

 

Good!

Maybe Good ol' Kirk will move to Ford to bug them to join Ghosn and leave GM the heck alone!

 

I think Mr K screwed up Mr G.

Here he was, running Nissan and Renault, busy turning around their recent slump, getting new vehicles ready, and Kerkorian drops the bug in his ear, and manuver to get him installed as CEO of GM and run the world's biggest automotive empire.

Now GM's kicked that idea out of the park (even got one of the co-conspirators to vote against it for crissakes! ), and Ford slammed the door without even the consideration of looking at it........

Man....... that's gotta hurt!

 

I don't see what the big deal about Ghosn is anyway.
Sure maybe he turned Nissan around in the short term.
Long term is yet to be proven.
Recently, Nissan's sales are down and quality problems are up.
And this is Nissan's hero? Ok then, they can keep him.

 

I like this Mulally guy. He seems to have clear direction. I get the feeling his direction is different to Bill Ford's (who appeared to consider some sort of strategic alliance with Ghosn's Nissan/Renault).

 

I gotta agree with you SS.

I didn't see any logic in bringing in an aircraft executive (Studebaker did that before they crashed), but for as short as he's been there, you can already see he's had an impact.