Troubled Ford posts $8.7b loss

Ford Motor Co, the world's third-largest automaker, posted a second-quarter loss of $8.7 billion and said it will convert three truck factories to produce small cars as rising gasoline prices sap US truck sales.

The net loss of $3.88 a share compared with a profit of $750 million, or 31 cents, a year earlier, Ford said in a statement distributed yesterday at its Dearborn, Michigan, headquarters. The figure included $8 billion in pretax writedowns of North American plants and assets of Ford Motor Credit Co.

The results mark the sixth loss in eight quarters under Chief Executive Officer Alan Mulally, recruited from Boeing Co to restore growth at the automaker. Gasoline on its way to $4 a gallon and plunging sales of F-Series pickups forced Mulally in May to abandon his target of returning to profit in 2009.