Ford Regains the Control of Blue Oval After Improvement of their Qualification
The CEO of Ford, Bill Ford announced today at a press conference in Detroit that the company has regained control of its logo, the blue oval, and other assets that the company used as collateral for a loan six years ago.
The announcement comes after Moody’s follow in the footsteps of Fitch next month and go up two steps the Ford Motor rating to Baa3, which goes from speculative to investment grade.
Ford had been a requirement that two rating agencies should place within the range of investment to regain control of intangible assets, including brands are also F-150 and Mustang, as well as buildings or machinery.
These assets were offered as collateral for a loan of 23,500 million in 2006, which allowed keeping the company afloat and avoid bankruptcy during the financial crisis.
“When we were able to claim the Blue Oval has been very exciting for me and my family,” he said at a press conference Bill Ford Jr., great-grandson of Henry Ford, founder of the company that invented the SUV.
In addition, Moody’s said today that the first car manufacturer worldwide, General Motors (GM), could reach the qualification level of investment in less than a year, helping the Detroit giant to obtain funding .
Today, the rating agency Moody’s decided to keep GM’s rating Ba1, speculative grade for investors, and a step below Baa3, and located within the range of investment grade, with moderate credit risk.
“Credit quality continues to improve GM and the company remains on track to recover the investment grade rating in the next 12 months,” he said in a statement Moody’s.
GM’s entry in the quality of investment value is one of the milestones of automotive manufacturer in ending the crisis that led to his entry into Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in June 2009.
Since then, after capital injections from the federal government, GM has experienced a rapid recovery with improvement of the U.S. market, expansion in China and the introduction of more compact models and low consumption.
Despite this improvement has been hurt by poor performance in Europe, the restructuring of GM has improved investor confidence, and in November 2010 the company returned to the stock markets.
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