Ford Motor Co has other options to cut costs if a just-completed round of buyouts for its U.S. blue-collar work force comes up short of its targets, the automaker's chief executive said Wednesday.
"We have a lot of other options to keep right-sizing the place," Ford Chief Executive Alan Mulally said in a presentation to analysts in New York that was monitored by Webcast.
Mulally said he would not elaborate on what the other options were.
The company's shares rose 13 cents. or 2.5 percent, to $5.42 in morning trading on the New York Stock Exchange.
Ford 's more than 50,000 U.S. factory workers represented by the United Auto Workers union had until midnight Tuesday to decide whether to take one of a range of buyout offers that included one-time payouts of up to $140,000.
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The automaker has not set a public target for how many workers it intends to reduce, but UAW workers have said they expect only several thousand to accept the buyouts, far fewer than took offers in 2006.
Ford , which lost $2.7 billion in 2007 and $12.6 billion in 2006, has been cutting production and its dealer network in the United States to match capacity with a falling market share.
Mulally, speaking to the Morgan Stanley Automotive Conference, said Ford would continue to reduce production as needed to respond if demand falls further.
Ford 's restructuring that includes a focus on matching demand for smaller vehicles as well as the capacity cuts, remains on plan or ahead of plan, Mulally said. The plan also has been "stress-tested" to continue to work even in the current soft sales environment, he said.
Ford has forecast U.S. industrywide vehicle sales at 15.7 million units for 2008 and the first two months have run closer to a 15.3 million rate, which is near the low end of its expected range for the first half of the year, he said.
"No matter what happens, we will just keep monitoring the situation and adjusting the production for demand," he said.
Ford , which is in the process of divesting its Jaguar and Land Rover brands, aims to return to profitability in 2009.
Mulally said he is focused on uniting the global units of Ford rather than on mergers or alliances with other companies.
"I have said the only thing we need to do to create value is to merge Ford together," Mulally said. " Ford grew up very regionally and very autonomous and now we are making tremendous progress in leveraging these assets worldwide."
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