'Financial Times': Ford Cuts 1,400 Jobs in Britain, European Performance 'Unacceptable'
DEBORAH MARCHINI, CNN ANCHOR: Ford is shutting down its Dagenham car-making assembly line in Britain, cutting jobs, but it is investing dollars in an engine plant there.</s>DAVID HAFFENREFFER, CNN ANCHOR: Ford calling the performance of its European unit, "totally unacceptable." Ed Crooks of the "Financial Times" joins us from the "FT"'s London newsroom this morning. Ed, these job cuts were not unexpected, no?</s>ED CROOKS, ECONOMICS EDITOR, "FINANCIAL TIMES": Hi. Good morning. No, not at all. In fact, we've been carrying the story in the paper, in fact, for months now, predicting that this was going to happen. I mean, basically, as you say, that that's really the heart of it, Ford saying that the results from their European operation have been unacceptable. They've been earning margins, I think, of less than one percent on what they've been doing in Europe. They've been very, very unhappy with the performance. Obviously, it's a difficult market; there's severe overcapacity in the European car market and so on. But Ford have really thought right. We've got to grips with this. We've got to do something. And in particular, what they seem to be doing now is sort of rationalizing production across their European plants, so that, as you were saying, car making essentially is going to be taken out of Dagenham, which is just outside of London. It's going to stop making the Fiesta small car, and that's going to go to Cologne in Germany and Valencia in Spain. But Dagenham won't close as a plant, and it, in fact, as you were saying, it's going to get $600 million of new investment, create 500 extra jobs in making diesel engines. And essentially, it's going to be a hub, certainly for Europe, possibly even for world-wide production of Ford's diesel engines. And so that's really the hope, that by concentrating activities on specific plants, they can enhance profitability, enhance margins and really improve quite substantially those results in that very difficult European market.</s>MARCHINI: We just heard new -- well, there was -- the announcement came at a news conference this morning, and the question basically is: Have we learned anything else as a result of what Ford's had to say?</s>CROOKS: Well, no, really, they're concentrating on what's going on in Britain at the moment; this is the news conference, as you say, which is happening in London right now, in fact, as we speak. But I think certainly the key to it and the other thing they're saying, is that this is, by no means, the end of their European restructuring. There's quite a lot more they're going to want to do, more along these similar lines of focusing activities, cutting costs, really trying to improve profitability substantially. And so I think the indications are today that we are going to be hearing a lot more about that in the weeks and months to come.</s>HAFFENREFFER: I'm sure details will continue to follow. Ed Crooks, at the "Financial Times," thanks very much, and have a good weekend.