Ford moves out of the red

Rare good news for the domestic auto companies – Ford made some money.

It's unclear if the news released by the Ford Motor Co. this week was good for the overall economy, but it was certainly good for the beleaguered auto company.

After nearly drowning in red ink over the past three years – Ford lost roughly $30 billion between 2006 and 2008 – the company announced a profit of nearly $1 billion in its latest quarterly report and a total profit of $1.8 billion for the first nine months of 2009.

What's more, company officials said Ford expects to be "solidly profitable in 2011." The year 2010 is a different story because of the uncertain economic climate.

Ford was more aggressive in preparing for its financial challenges in past years than the other two domestic auto companies, General Motors and Chrysler. Because of that, it did not seek or want the government bailouts that were lavished on GM and Chrysler, so far without any benefit to the taxpayers or to the companies in terms of returning them to profitability.

So it's no surprise that Ford not only is in the best financial shape of the three but the first to return to profitability.

Despite that, however, the future is not guaranteed. Ford President Alan Mulally, who came to the car company from Boeing in 2006, conceded that "we still face a challenging road ahead." The most significant obstacle is a staggering debt of more than $35 billion, which must be repaid by 2013.

The company is trying to address the debt by modifying the repayment schedule, raising funds by issuing additional stock, negotiating contract changes with its union work force and reducing its employment level. Ford has nearly 75,000 workers in North America, a huge number but still down 45 percent since 2006.

So Ford is hardly out of the woods, but circumstances definitely are improving for a company that was pushed to the edge of extinction and now seems to be fighting its way back to profitability.

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