Can Ford go it alone?

TEXT OF STORY

Scott Jagow: You gotta give Ford some credit. It’s refusing credit from the government, even though the company’s still losing billions. The latest balance sheet came out this morning. Ford burned through $5.5 billion in cash last quarter. It lost $6 billion.

Four quarters like that and Ford goes bust this year. But the company believes things will get better, and it’s gonna try to go it alone. Marketplace’s Steve Henn has more.

Steve Henn: When you add it up, Ford lost $14.6 billion last year. Now it has a just little more than $13 billion left to make it through 2009. But the company says it still plans to avoid going to the federal government for a bailout.

Dave Sedwick: Well, it’s going to be tight.

Dave Sedwick is editor of Automotive News:

Sedwick: I’d like to think they can make it, they think they can make it. But if they admit that if we keep bumping along at the low sales rate industry-wide that we’re at right now, they may have to go to the feds and ask for money.

Instead, Ford’s hoping to raise cash by selling Volvo. The company also announced it’s slashing 1,200 jobs at its Ford Motor Credit division. And in another attempt to cut costs, it hammered out a deal with its union to end its job bank. That program provided laid-off workers paychecks while they waited to be rehired.

In Washington, I’m Steve Henn for Marketplace.