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Ford Posts Big Losses for Fourth Quarter, Full Year
Ford Motor Co. lost $5.8 billion in the fourth quarter amid slumping sales and huge restructuring costs, pushing the No. 2 U.S. automaker’s s loss for the year to $12.7 billion, the largest in its 103-year history, the Associated Press reported.
The annual loss, reported Thursday, surpassed its previous full-year record of $7.39 billion, set in 1992, AP reported. The '06 loss amounted to $6.79 a share, versus a profit of $1.44 billion or 77 cents a share in 2005.Ford’s loss was not the biggest in U.S. auto industry history, AP said. No. 1 automaker General Motors Corp. lost more than $20 billion in 1992.Ford said it expects more losses this year, including spending $10 billion on automotive operations through 2009 and another $7 billion to invest in new products, AP reported.The fourth-quarter loss was the worst final-quarter loss in Ford's history and its second-worst quarterly performance on record. Ford lost $6.7 billion in the first quarter of 1992, due mainly to accounting rule changes on health care liabilities, AP reported.