"Financially strapped Mazda seeks partners

TOKYO -- Mazda Motor Corp. CEO Takashi Yamanouchi says the automaker is “actively” seeking alliance partners as it faces an increasingly dire financial future.

His comments came last week after Mazda forecast a net loss of 100 billion yen ($1.29 billion) in the fiscal year that ends March 31, on a 2 percent slide in global sales to 1.25 million units.

That would mark Mazda’s fourth straight year of red ink and its worst showing in 11 years, since a net loss of $2.0 billion in the year ended March 31, 2001.

Mazda, which exports a greater percentage of its vehicles from Japan than any other automaker, has been hit hard by the yen’s continued strength against the dollar and other currencies. The yen’s strength means Mazda repatriates fewer yen in profits on overseas sales.

To counter the yen, Mazda is building a factory in Mexico. It will assemble the Mazda2 and Mazda3 for sale in the United States and Latin America beginning in 2013.

Mazda has been independent since former partner Ford Motor Co., then seeking to raise cash to head off financial woes of its own, sold down its holdings in the Japanese automaker. Ford began to sell off its controlling 33 percent stake in Mazda in 2008, reducing the stake to less than 4 percent in 2010.

In addition, Yamanouchi says raising capital is a “must” for the small Japanese carmaker. Mazda’s debt rating faces a possible downgrade unless the company bolsters its capital, perhaps through the sale of more shares. “We are considering every option,” he said of the hunt for more cash.

In 2009, Mazda raised $1.2 billion of capital through a share sale. It invested much of that money into environmentally friendly technologies such as its recently released Skyactiv line of fuel-efficient engines and lightweight body architectures.

Yamanouchi wants to offer Skyactiv products to other carmakers to attract new partners.

Read more: http://www.autonews.com/article/2012...#ixzz1mMzzQzqh"


Maybe we should all start buying all the rotary bits we can.......

Eric

 

I dunno man... I normally never buy from Mazda in the first place Always fabricated parts or from another parts car hehehe

 

And when money gets tight whats the 1st thing to go...................?

 

**** thats not good, hopefully my job isnt going to be in jeopardy..I want to see a new rotary soon.

 

*Buys a new MS3 before they're Mexican cars*

 

The warrenty prone Rotary engine.

 

No money, No 16X

 

Yeah that's not good at all! however most of the Japanese makes aren't doing great right now. The world economy overall all is still pretty weak.

 

The 1st thing to go is usually Motorsports, thats why Peugeot pulled out of Lemans this year. Mazda is not like other Japanese companies, since they bought back the percentage that Ford owned that burned up most of their liquid cash. I believe in world sales they are smaller than Suzuki. I think they have dropped to 6th in Canada in yearly sales behind Toyota, Hyundai, Honda, Nissan and Kia.

 

Hopefully the CX-5 and skyactiv become popular, that should help get them out of the *******.

 

Seems only fitting that they would assemble Mazdas in Mexico...
Spinning Doritos..
..and if you hollow out a Rotary engine you can ship 40kg of weed in it!

 

Well as a Mazda tech I saw this coming... Mazda has been coming down on warranty very hard lately kicking back alot of claims on us dealers... In fact we are being audited for the past year soon and I have a feeling we're gonna be hit hard. But if my dealer has to pay to help get Mazda in the black so be it!