Ford second-quarter profit falls on restructuring charges
- Ford's ongoing restructuring weighed on its quarterly EPS, which missed analysts' expectations.
- Ford also booked a one-time charge related to investment holdings.
- Ford improved its year-over-year margins in Europe and narrowed losses for its troubled China operations.
- The company's CFO said that that Ford was "well above targets for cash and liquidity."
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Ford on Wednesday reported a lower quarterly net profit, primarily due to charges related to the restructuring of the automaker's units in Europe and South America.
The No. 2 U.S. automaker posted a second-quarter net profit of $148 million, or 4 cents per share, down from $1.1 billion, or 27 cents per share, a year earlier.
Excluding one-time charges, the company earned 28 cents per share. Analysts had expected Ford to earn 31 cents a share, according to IBES data from Refinitiv.
"Results were affected by a $181 million mark-to-market valuation adjustment loss on Ford's shares in Pivotal Software, a cloud-based software company," the automaker said in a statement.
"Excluding the Pivotal Software revaluation, adjusted EBIT would have been $1.8 billion and adjusted EPS would have been $0.32."
"Midway through this key year of action, we are pleased with the progress we are making toward creating a more dynamic and profitable business,"Ford CEO Jim Hackett said. "In this time of profound change in our industry, Ford has amazing opportunities to delight customers, innovate and collaborate in new ways, and create value."
In an interview with Business Insider after earnings were released, Ford CFO Tim Stone said that that Ford was "well above targets for cash and liquidity."
Ford reported $23.2 billion cash on hand and $37.3 billion in total liquidity.
(Reuters reporting By Nick Carey; Editing by Nick Zieminski)