Ford Motor profit beats street, maintains 2015 profit forecast

[DETROIT] Ford Motor Co's quarterly earnings beat Wall Street earnings expectations on Thursday, and the automaker maintained its 2015 profit forecast.

Excluding special items, fourth-quarter earnings were 26 cents per share, which beat expectations of 23 cents per share by analysts polled by Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.

Net income was US$52 million, or one cent per share, a fall from US$3.07 billion a year earlier, when results were boosted by a one-time US$2.1 billion special tax item.

Ford took a one-time charge of US$800 million for an accounting change in Venezuela that also shields its future earnings from the volatile currency and operations there.

Revenue of US$35.9 billion topped expectations of US$34.54 billion by analysts polled by Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.

In North America, Ford made a pretax profit of US$6.9 billion in 2014, which will yield an annual bonus for about 50,000 union-represented workers of US$6,900 per person, down from US$8,800 in 2013.

Ford maintained its forecast for 2015 pretax profit of between US$8.5 billion and US$9.5 billion.

REUTERS