US car market Ford has reported a second-quarter profit, mainly due ot once-off gains. Ford also narrowed its trading loss to $424m in results which were better than market expectations.
The second-quarter net profit amounted to of $2.26 billion, helped by once-off gains of $2.8 billion linked to debt reductions. That compared with a whopping $8.7 billion loss in the same period a year ago.
The operating results, an important indicator of the health of the struggling car giant, were better than expected, translating to a loss of 21 cents a share. This contrasted with Wall Street forecasts of 48 cents.
Ford's Q2 revenue was a better than expected $27.2 billion, though still down $11 billion from the same period a year ago as the company pursued a massive restructuring that included selling some of its operations.
'While the business environment remained extremely challenging around the world, we made significant progress on our transformation plan,' said Ford president and chief executive Alan Mulally.
The only one of the Big Three Detroit car makers to survive without a US government bail-out has nonetheless been struggling with the collapse in car sales in the US and other markets, and lost $14.5 billion in 2008.
Ford has already shed tens of thousands of jobs and closed plants in an effort to cut costs, and sold off the bulk of its luxury European brands, including Jaguar and Aston Martin. It is considering the sale of Swedish brand Volvo. Ford said its expects 2009 US industry sales will be between 10.5 million and 11 million units, down sharply from last year but reflecting an increase from an horrific start to the year.
