Internal Family Disputes May Hinder Ford Recovery

With the Ford Motor Co. mired in a dangerous decline, Ford family members gathered April 21 for a critical meeting on the company's future and their role as controlling shareholders of one of America's last great industrial dynasties.

But this gathering, held at Greenfield Village not far from Ford's world headquarters, was quite different from previous family summits because of the presence of two of Wall Street's hottest dealmakers, Joseph Perella and Peter Weinberg.

The Detroit News has learned that Ford family members invited Perella and Weinberg and considered hiring them to advise the family about its huge stock holdings in Ford Motor -- a clear sign of growing concern about the automaker's long-term prospects.

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BigShow50 - 5/8/2007 9:56:07 AM

+1 Boost

The Ford family says behind closed doors..."forget the consumer and efforts to turn over a new leaf, but what will happen to us, money, stocks, and all???"...That's pretty sad if you ask me.

EnnNorak - 5/8/2007 11:31:31 AM

0 Boost

The dynamics of those who have is to keep as much as possible of what they have. The different family members most likely have different agendas depending on their individual circumstances. Their opinions as to risk factors probably also differ. Family differences can lead to costly financial feuds where everybody loses. The safest way out is for Ford to be acquired for cash or shares that have some value and growth potential. What they need is a "car guy" version of Warren Buffet who is looking for new investment opportunities for his billions.
This is an interesting business story that should be followed to its eventual conclusion, whatever that may be.

aeyjay - 5/9/2007 3:21:55 AM

0 Boost

Ford does a lot of 'a$$ backwards' things and I have a few examples.

1.)The retro T-bird. If this was done properly and they really wanted to be retro, it would've been a Corvette competitor in size, handling, and performance. No, Ford brings this cigar-boat car back for a few years and then DROPS it.
2.)Ford 500/Mercury Montego- yes, they are nice and safe cars but why in the world would you rebadge them as the new Taurus and Sable. It is not cool to do that LOL.
3.)Giving the US the runt cars... Do we not deserve your higher quality cars? ie. euro focus, Mondeo, etc?

4.)This list could go ON, and ON... as you all know how Ford is just sucking and taking Mercury/Lincoln along for the fall.

Just my .02 LOL

EnnNorak - 5/9/2007 2:19:34 PM

+2 Boost

Agree with "aeyjay" about Ford. I tried to get into that reincarnated T-bird and found the process quite awkward. Styling was a bit on the silly side also and did not capture the retro theme to my liking. Now they want to rebadge the 500 as a Taurus and Taurus never enjoyed the best reputation on the street -- the fleets must have bought zillions of them over the years which must have blinded Ford decision makers into rebadging the 500. They launched the 500 with an underpowered engine and adopted the CVT instead of a more reliable conventional 6-speed automatic transmission. I had 3 Grand Marquis in the nineties and early this century and I gave up on Ford because they would not make the engine improvements for the Grand Marquis that I was looking for and I had other problems as well.