By Chelsey Dulaney and Mike Ramsey
BlackRock Inc. reported a 5.4% stake in Ford Motor Co. Monday in
a regulatory filing, doubling its ownership stake reported at the
end of the fourth quarter.
The move comes as Ford has told investors it will have a major
rebound in 2015 off of a struggle in 2014. Ford reported last month
a steep drop in profits as a result of removing Venezuela from its
consolidated earnings, but also had a 4.5% decline in revenue
related to launching its F-150 pickup in the U.S.
BlackRock, the world's largest asset manager, didn't disclose
plans for the stake.
Ford has forecast that pretax profits, the operating measure
that Ford uses with Wall Street, will be up as much as 50% in 2015
and that it will growth sales and market share on a global
basis.
Ford's stock rose $1 over the past 12 month and sat at $15.86 at
the end of trading Friday.
Write to Chelsey Dulaney at Chelsey.Dulaney@wsj.com and Mike
Ramsey at michael.ramsey@wsj.com
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