Ford Chief Mulally May Do for Automaker What He Did at Boeing

Ford Chief Mulally May Do for Automaker What He Did at Boeing

April 25 (Bloomberg) -- Ford Motor Co. Chief ExecutiveOfficer Alan Mulally may be pulling a repeat: Turning around theNo. 2 U.S. automaker in the same way that he helped reviveBoeing Co., the world's second-largest aircraft maker.

Ford yesterday reported a $100 million first-quarter profitafter analysts had forecast a loss. Ford shares gained the mostsince November 2002 as Mulally maintained his pledge to restorethe Dearborn, Michigan-based automaker to profit in 2009.

``It's hard not to have a positive reaction to theseresults,'' said Van Conway, who advises struggling companies aspresident of Conway, MacKenzie & Dunleavy in Birmingham,Michigan. ``When you overlay the state of the economy, you haveto give him an `A' on the report card.''

The profit was the second for Ford since the career-longaircraft executive took over 20 months ago, recruited byChairman William Clay Ford Jr. to tackle the automaker's thirdrestructuring in five years.

``The confidence in our plan is really increasing,'' saidMulally, 62, in a Bloomberg Television interview yesterday. ``Wesaid we had to aggressively restructure to meet the realdemand.''

At Boeing, Mulally slashed employment as head of thecommercial airplane division by more than half, to about 50,000in eight years. He sped production of a more fuel-efficientjetliner, the 787, and helped lay the groundwork for recordorders.

Boeing reported a 38 percent gain in first-quarter profittwo days ago and said it has $346 billion in unfilled commercialand military orders on its books.