For Sale: Ford’s Aston Martin
Ford Motor Co. is licensed to sell: The struggling automaker Thursday said it was looking to unload Aston Martin Lagonda, whose luxury sports cars were James Bond’s preferred ride.
Selling the British carmaker, part of Ford’s Premier Automotive Group, is unlikely to make much difference to Ford’s bottom line, analysts said. But a sale would free time and talent to concentrate on the woes affecting the company’s core Ford, Lincoln and Mercury brands.
“It’s really about shedding a distraction,” said Sean Egan, auto industry analyst at Egan-Jones Ratings Co., a Philadelphia-based bond research firm. “It’s a terrific move.”
Ford said it had been approached about selling Aston Martin, but it would not identify potential buyers.
Aston Martin, which Ford says is profitable, sold about 5,000 cars worldwide last year, including 1,800 in the U.S. -- about 0.05% of Ford’s total U.S. sales. It is on track to repeat that performance and turn in a profit again this year, said Tim Watson, a spokesman at Premier Automotive Group’s North American headquarters in Irvine.
Other nameplates in the group are Britain’s Jaguar and Land Rover and Sweden’s Volvo.
Aston Martin cars start in the U.S. at $110,000, and the top V12 Vanquish model approaches $300,000 with options.
The company has about 2,000 employees worldwide, including 20 in the U.S. Most of its workers are in Gaydon, England, where Aston Martin has its headquarters and research and production facilities. Ford built a new assembly plant for the automaker there two years ago.
Ford, which lost $1.4 billion in the first half of this year, has been losing U.S. market share for more than a decade. To cut costs, it is closing factories and shedding more than 30,000 workers over the next few years.
Plans for accelerating and expanding its recovery effort are expected to be announced after Ford’s board of directors meets Sept. 14. Despite its woes, Ford reported having $23.6 billion in cash on hand at the end of June.
The Dearborn, Mich., automaker also is believed to be discussing the possible sale of all or part of its Jaguar and Land Rover brands. Ford hasn’t acknowledged talks about selling other brands but has said that everything is on the table as it seeks to reverse its fortunes.
“They are the most salable assets Ford has,” Egan said of the PAG brands.
Jaguar has been losing money for years, but the others are profitable, Ford said. Jaguar’s market value has been estimated at $1 billion by economic forecaster Global Insight Inc., “but we don’t think Aston Martin would be worth that much, probably in the high nine figures,” analyst John Wolkonowicz said.
“We don’t think they can sell it for enough cash to make a difference,” said Global Insight’s North American auto analyst, Rebecca Lindland.
Aston Martin was founded in 1913 and after a series of bankruptcies established itself on the European continent after World War II as an important exotic performance brand.
Ford acquired a 75% interest in 1985 and completed its purchase of the company in 1994.
Aston Martin made fewer than 100 cars a year in the early 1990s, bottoming out at 42 cars in 1993, PAG spokesman Watson said. Under Ford, which installed former Porsche executive Ulrich Bez as Aston Martin’s chief executive six years ago, the company has bounced back.
