Ford Posts $8.7 Billion Loss on Write-Downs

The Ford Motor Company reported today that it lost $8.7 billion in the second quarter as it wrote-off $8 billion in assets and as sales of its most profitable vehicles plunged.

The loss, equal to $3.88 a share, included write-downs of $5.3 billion on Ford’s North America assets and $2.1 billion on the lease portfolio of the Ford Motor Credit Company.

The company lost $1 billion from continuing operations, with $600 million of that amount attributable to North America.

“While we have no intention of giving up our longtime truck leadership, we are creating a new Ford in North America on a foundation of small, fuel-efficient cars and crossovers,” Mark Fields, the president of Ford’s Americas division, said in a statement.

Ford said it would retool a sport-utility vehicle factory in Michigan and begin making compact cars there in 2010. An S.U.V. plant in Kentucky will start building small cars in 2011. The company has already announced plans to build a new subcompact car, the Fiesta, at a former truck factory in Mexico.

A plant in St. Paul, Minn., that was scheduled to close next year will stay open through 2011 to continue building the Ford Ranger, a compact