Ford CFO: Dispite Russia's Pitfalls, Globally Set Up Well For 2015 - Ford Motor (NYSE:F)

Ford Motor Company F posted better than expected fourth-quarter results today, January 29, following which Robert Shanks, executive vice president & CFO at Ford, was on CNBC to discuss the company’s results and the challenges it faces in Russia.

Past Predictions Come To Fruition?

“We said more than a year ago that this year was going to be somewhat different than the previous four and that we are going to see a lot of launch effects from a very aggressive – in fact an unprecedented – introduction of products this year, last year rather, and we delivered that,” Shanks said.

“In fact, we delivered one more and so we are very well positioned as we go with 2015 for growth. And we are going to have even more products that we launch this year.”

“We are really set up well for a very strong 2015.”

Is The 17 Million Auto-Sales Number For Real?

“I think it’s possible, and that’s certainly in our guidance,” Shanks said of the 17 million auto-sales number.

“We have got that within our range; we include medium, heavy trucks, but we do expect to see growth in the U.S. industry in 2015. In fact, we expect to see growth globally.”

“We are in a growth industry and the U.S. is going to be part of that.”

Is The Worst Yet To Come In Russia?

“I think the answer is we don’t know,” Shanks said. “We have made a lot of progress in our European transformation plan, particularly in western Europe around product, brand and cost, but when we developed that plan back in 2012, we included

Russia

. That’s an important part of that.”

“At the time, it was expected to become the largest market in Europe.”

“Of course, things have changed since then. But we do have confidence that at least in the medium- to long-term Russia is still going to be a very important market and we are going to participate in that…very, very tough in Russia last year and looking extremely difficult this year.”

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