Ford Motor Co. (F) revealed that it will idle its plant in Genk, Belgium, for 5 days starting April 4 in order to avoid shortage of parts supplied by Japanese manufacturers. The automaker had initially planned to idle the plant from May due to some other reason.
However, the company has decided to idle it earlier following the earthquake and tsunami in Japan on March 11. The plant manufactures Mondeo sedans and Galaxy and S-Max minivans.
Automakers around the world are facing parts shortage problem due to the disaster in Japan on March 11 that killed more than 10,000 people, broke down infrastructure and triggered a nuclear crisis.
So far, General Motors Co. (GM) is the only U.S.-based automaker to be affected by the calamity so far. Japanese automakers, including Honda Motor Co. (HMC), ToyotaMotor Corp. (TM) and Nissan Motor Co. (NSANY) have been hit hard by the natural disaster in the country.
Ford is the second U.S.-based automaker to announce production shutdowns due the crisis in Japan. It has also stopped overtime at three plants in the U.S. and one in Thailand.
Last week, Ford asked dealers to stop taking orders for vehicles painted in tuxedo black due to a shortage of a necessary pigment that is imported from Japan. It has decided to limit output of automobiles in three red shades used on the Ford F-150 and Super Duty pickups, the Explorer, Expedition and Lincoln Navigator sport-utility vehicles and the Taurus, Focus and Lincoln MKS sedans.
Ford, a Zacks #3 Rank (Hold) stock, posted a 24% fall in profit to $1.2 billion or 30 cents per share (before special items) in the fourth quarter of 2010 from $1.58 billion or 43 cents per share (before special items) in the same quarter of 2009. With this, the automaker has missed the Zacks Consensus Estimate by 19 cents per share.
The decline in profit was attributable to lower year-over-year revenues generated by the company’s automotive operations as well as the financial arm. Total revenue during the quarter ebbed 7% to $32.5 billion. However, excluding revenues from Volvo, sales improved by $1.6 billion or 5% from the fourth quarter of 2009.
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