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CNN Live At Daybreak

William Ford to be Ford Motor Company's CEO

Aired October 30, 2001 - 07:38   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: A big bump in the road for Ford Motor Company's senior management, the nation's No. 2 automaker says that for the first time in a generation there will be a Ford in the driver seat.

CNN Financial News correspondent Chris Huntington is here to discuss the fallout.

Were you surprised by this move?

CHRIS HUNTINGTON, CNN FINANCIAL NEWS CORRESPONDENT: No, this has been coming for quite sometime. In July, Ford set up a unique power sharing arrangement where they had William Clay Ford, Jr., great- grandson of Henry Ford, share the office of the chairman and CEO with Jacques Nasser. And there was a lot of confusion in the company about who was really running the show, plenty of speculation accurate that indeed Nasser would be forced out.

ZAHN: So who will replace him then or does Bill Ford assume all that power?

HUNTINGTON: Bill Ford, for the time being, assumes all the power.

There is a gent who ran Ford's European operations named Nick Scheele. He headed up the Jaguar division, then he ran all of the European operation. He was recently, just in the past few weeks, brought over to run Ford's North American division so he's already on site. And the inside talk is that he will eventually be groomed to take over the day-to-day operations of Ford.

ZAHN: Let's talk about the cold hard reality of the falling stock prices. In the end what --if you look at the performance of the stock over the last year, what happened to it?

HUNTINGTON: Cut in half.

ZAHN: Wow.

HUNTINGTON: Perhaps even more significantly the dividend was cut in half under Nasser's tenure. And keep in mind that the Ford family owns 40 percent of Ford's stocks so that dividend cut effectively cut the Ford family cash flow in half. And it doesn't take an MBA to see that if a Ford is in the management ranks and the Ford family is taking a hit that you know who's going to side with whom there.

ZAHN: It doesn't necessarily mean we all have to worry about whether they're going to have food at the family dinner table or any of that?

HUNTINGTON: Yes, I think they'll do all right, yes.

ZAHN: What will be Mr. Nasser's legacy? Will it be the poor performance of the stock prices over the last year...

HUNTINGTON: Well,...

ZAHN: ... or is there something more positive that you can point to?

HUNTINGTON: It's an interesting point you bring up because certainly for the Wall Street analysts the -- his legacy will be the bottom line problems, but his public legacy will certainly relate to his defiance during the rollover crisis.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JACQUES NASSER, PRESIDENT AND CEO, FORD MOTOR COMPANY: We did not hide anything and we actively looked to see if there was any evidence of the same problem here in the U.S. market. In every case, we were ahead of Firestone in terms of replacing tires. We were ahead of any government regulation or recall.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNTINGTON: Now, Paula, just this month -- earlier this month, the government came out with its final analysis of the rollover crisis and indeed came in on Ford's side saying that Firestone tires were the root cause of the rollovers. So in effect, Nasser vindicated, but that may be lost as a -- as a footnote.

ZAHN: Thanks for helping us understand all the maneuverings going on out there. Good to see you, Chris.

HUNTINGTON: OK.

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