Ford Motor Co.’s restructuring would be “more extensive” than GM’s and could involve laying off tens of thousands of employees around the world, analysts at Morgan Stanley said in a note Monday.
The analysts used Ford’s planned expenses as part of their calculations and compared them to General Motors Co’s expenses in the latter’s planned restructuring announced last week.
Regardless, Ford F, +2.02% is likely “next in line” in announcing layoffs as GM’s move “reflects an industrywide phenomenon” with potentially larger cuts, the analysts said.
Ford last October announced an $11 billion restructuring plan, with a cash cost around $7 billion, but has not provided any details yet.
GM GM, +1.32% is spending as much as $ 2 billion of cash (up to $3.8 billion of total charges) to close seven plants and lay off about 14,000 workers.
“Extrapolated to Ford’s planned expenditure, this could imply 20 plants and up to (50,000) employees,” the Morgan Stanley analysts said. “Our estimate of Ford’s restructuring plan involves as many as (25,000) head count reductions globally.”
“A large portion” of Ford’s restructuring actions will likely be focused on Ford Europe, they said.
The analysts reiterated that Ford “has not given any indication of planned closures or potential layoffs to date.”
Layoffs and cost-cutting measures are “not just a GM or a Ford thing,” the Morgan Stanley analysts said.
There are bigger forces at work driving global OEMs to rethink the fundamental idea of supporting increasingly obsolete segments, propulsion systems, and geographic regions,” they said.
Morgan Stanley reiterated its equivalent to a neutral view on U.S. auto makers, saying they prefer the auto makers to most auto suppliers “and avoid the most levered suppliers and rental-car names.”
Ford shares are down 23% this year, compared with losses of 6% for GM and versus gains of 16% for Tesla Inc. TSLA, -1.17% shares in the same period. The losses also contrast with 2018 gains of 4% each for the S&P 500 index SPX, +1.09% and the Dow Jones Industrial Average. DJIA, +1.13%
