Earnings Labs

Ford Motor Company (F)

Q1 2016 Earnings Call· Fri, Apr 29, 2016

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Transcript

Unknown Speaker

Management

Good morning. My name is Tiffany and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the Ford First Quarter Earnings Conference Call. Thank you. I would now like to turn the call over to Ted Cannis, Executive Director, Ford Investor Relations. Please go ahead, sir.

Ted Cannis - Executive Director-Investor Relations

Management

All right. Thanks very much, Tiffany. Good morning and welcome, everybody, for the first quarter 2016 financial results. As normal, copies of the press release and the presentation slides are available on Ford's Investor website and the media websites. As always, the results discussed today include some non-GAAP references and those are reconciled to the US GAAP equivalent in the appendix to the slides. Also, today's presentation includes some forward-looking statements about our expectations for future performance. Actual results may vary, and those most significant factors are included in our presentation. Also, by the way, later today we will be issuing the 10-Q and Ford Credit will be hosting a call at 11:00 AM to review their results. Now presenting today and we'll have a few more comments, Mark Fields, our President and CEO; Bob Shanks, our Chief Financial Officer. Also participating are Stuart Rowley, Vice President and Controller; Neil Schloss, Vice President and Corporate Treasurer; Paul Andonian, Director of Corporate Accounting; and Marion Harris, our Ford Credit CFO. Before we dive in, we just made some changes to the presentation just to make it a little clearer for you, a bit of a more overall look to the business and highlight key points. And also, we just wanted to show you how we're continuing to focus on creating value and driving our long-term growth. So with that, Mark, ready to go. Mark Fields - President, CEO & Director: All right. Thanks, Ted, and good morning, everyone. We have some very strong results to share with you today. In fact, an all-time record quarter for the company and very strong performance across the business. Our company pre-tax profit came in at $3.8 billion and that was $2.1 billion better than a year ago. Our net income was $2.5 billion and…

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Your first question comes from the line of Pat Archambault of Goldman Sachs. Patrick Archambault - Goldman Sachs & Co.: Thank you very much. Good morning and congrats on a great result. Mark Fields - President, CEO & Director: Thanks, Pat. Patrick Archambault - Goldman Sachs & Co.: I guess maybe two areas of questions for me, it is first on the walk in North America. Just a little bit more, perhaps, on the pricing versus cost piece. Maybe I'll just take it at a very, very high level. I think one would've expected that, given the newness of the portfolio, pricing would be still up as it was in previous quarters. And I get that there was that inventory adjustment, but even with that it seems that pricing would have been up much? Then also, likewise, on the positive side, I guess -- I think I was quite surprised by the extent of benefits from lower variable costs, right, and just given all the new content. I guess that took me by surprise as well. So maybe we could talk a little bit about that and how we think about those things going forward? Robert L. Shanks - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: Yeah. I'll take that, Pat. So if you look at the pricing, you can see we did have strong absolute pricing of about $600 million and that was pretty much, if I take the stock accrual aside, that was pretty much offset by incentives. And again, I think this quarter, in terms of a run rate, is sort of more normal. Last year was the anomaly because of what was going on with the F-Series and the Oakville launch. And I think that really is influencing this because last year we largely…

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Ryan Brinkman of JPMorgan.

Ryan Brinkman - JPMorgan Securities LLC

Analyst

Hi. Good morning. Congrats on the quarter. Thanks for taking my questions. You mentioned that warning you gave intra-quarter about the $100 million headwind to Ford Credit in 1Q from lower used car prices, impact of lease residuals, etc. Yet, your profit there was strong and it rose year over year. So can you talk some more about the tailwinds impacting that business that are allowing you to offset that headwind, whether just an increase in portfolio or something else? Then, as the year progresses, what is your outlook for both the headwind from used car prices and the tailwind from the offsetting factors? Robert L. Shanks - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: Yeah, Ryan. Good morning. I think it's largely the same thing that I said at Let's Chat, which is we would expect to see sort of an adverse year-over-year from lease residuals in most of the quarters that we have ahead of us, if not all of them, although it will start to mitigate as we get towards the end of the year. So we think – and we built that in. As I mentioned in March, we do have an expectation of lower auction values and that's particularly on the car side of the business, but we haven't built that in. I think that will be on a year-over-year basis, the headwind, although again mitigating towards the end of the year. But that will be offset by strong growth of the business, not only in North America, but in other parts of the world as well. So I think that will be an offset. Again, the other thing I should mention is the team is really, really focused on cost performance. Our operating cost performance is the best in the business and that will continue to be something that will keep us lean and mean and enable Ford Credit to continue to generate the types of profitability that it has.

Ryan Brinkman - JPMorgan Securities LLC

Analyst

Okay. Thank you. Yeah, go ahead, sorry. Mark Fields - President, CEO & Director: And then, Ryan, on your question on used car prices, obviously you've seen some of the Manheim reports. This is not a demand issue. The demand is there. It's really a supply issue as more of these three-year leases come off. We're going to watch it closely. Obviously, we've done a lot of the studies to see, are used car buyers actually cross-shopping with new cars. It's very small, it's in the single digits, but clearly it does have implications for trade-in values, so we're going to continue to watch that closely.

Ryan Brinkman - JPMorgan Securities LLC

Analyst

Okay. Thanks. Then just on the 6.3% margin in Europe, obviously that's really impressive. If I go back to your last Analyst Day in September 2014, it looks like you were guiding then for 3% to 5% margin by 2020. How sustainable do you think this improvement in Europe is? I understand it's a seasonally stronger quarter, but presumably as volume continues to normalize higher over time, does that now mean there's upside to your out-year 3% to 5% outlook? Robert L. Shanks - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: Well, I think we're going to have a great year in Europe. And as we said, even though we are off to a very good start and I think we're going to continue to have a very good year, our objective is to make Europe a very sustainable and vibrant, profitable part of our business and achieving 6% to 8% operating margin. And that's what we are focusing on. Importantly, as we do it, we are seeing a lot of the things that we've done over the past couple of years pay off. On the cost side, as you know, we reduced our capacities. On the brand side, if you look at, for example, our channel mix in Europe, we're about 6 points above the rest of the industry in terms of channel mix of retail and fleet, which is good business for us. If you look at the investments we've made in our commercial vehicle brand, we are number one, the best-selling commercial vehicle brand. As I mentioned earlier, we're seeing very rich mix in Europe, which I think bodes well, particularly based on the experience we've seen over a period of time here in North America.

Ryan Brinkman - JPMorgan Securities LLC

Analyst

Okay. Thanks. Just lastly then, I'm curious with your planned new plant in Mexico and now with the really essentially complete intertwining of the U.S., Mexican, and Canadian auto markets, whether you have given much thoughts to the potential risk to your North American operations, and to the industry in general, from all of this weird rethinking on both sides of the political aisle of the benefits of NAFTA. Robert L. Shanks - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: Well, I can't speak to what's being said on the campaign trail. Obviously, we have these trade agreements and I think, as we look at our business, we have made a big commitment obviously here to our facilities here in the U.S. You've seen some of the numbers in terms of backing that up. Not only just the absolute numbers of what, we've invested $10 billion over the last number of years and another $9 billion going forward, of which you saw some of that announced two days ago. But, clearly, we manufacture more vehicles here in the U.S. than any other OEM and employ more people. But at the same time, we are looking at our footprint and we are seeing what does it make sense for our business? And I think we have a good plan going forward to support our growth, despite some of the political campaign chatter right now.

Ryan Brinkman - JPMorgan Securities LLC

Analyst

Thanks. Congrats again. Robert L. Shanks - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: Thanks.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Rod Lache of Deutsche Bank.

Rod A. Lache - Deutsche Bank Securities, Inc.

Analyst

Good morning, everybody. Robert L. Shanks - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: Hi, Rod.

Rod A. Lache - Deutsche Bank Securities, Inc.

Analyst

I had a couple of things. First, on North America. Obviously the Q1 numbers are up a lot and, as you said, the full-year earnings will be flat, which implies some, I guess, negative comparisons later in the year. And I think you alluded to some of those drivers. It sounds like a lot of it is related to the launches. So as we think about the pluses and minuses, the last year obviously you had a pretty significant number of launches. This year you've got the Super Duty, and I presume next year is going to be the same. So as you look out to 2017 are there some drags that are being incurred right now that you think might go away as we look further out? Robert L. Shanks - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: Well, Rod, I think you kind of touched on a number. When you look at our Super Duty launch, we will have the full benefit of that launch in 2017. Couple of other things, we continue to see here in the U.S. customers migrating from passenger cars into SUVs. And when you look at our lineup and you look at the performance there, we think that continues to bode well for us. I think our work overall, as I mentioned earlier, are really understanding the costs that we're putting into the product to drive mix, will be important. So I would look at it – you could look at it and say, oh my gosh, the second half is going to be weaker and that's going to run into 2017. As we said, this is kind of a normal year in terms of the calendarization of our profits and sales, but the bottom line as we get into 2017, we see continued strength based on the foundational elements of the business: product, brand, and cost.

Rod A. Lache - Deutsche Bank Securities, Inc.

Analyst

Okay. Can you comment on where you expect to end the year with respect to inventory days, to the extent that there is some – a little bit of an elevated level in the field? Is that something that gets corrected by the end of the year? And how should we be thinking about the outlook for the non-raw-material cost inflation going forward? Robert L. Shanks - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: In terms of inventory, Rod, as I said back in March, our expectations are that you will continue to see the inventory levels come down, particularly as we get further into the higher selling seasons in the spring and the summer. And then towards the end of the year, we always end strong, usually with the end-of-year sales as well. So I think you'll see us very, very normal by the time we get into the second half of the year in particular. So I don't see anything unusual there at all. We are a bit heavy right now on Super Duty, as I said, and then of course with the very low volume January and February sales months, the visible, if you will, of the day supply look high, but we are actually quite comfortable with where we are. So I don't think you're going to see anything unusual other than what I just mentioned. In terms of the raw materials, I think I mentioned...

Rod A. Lache - Deutsche Bank Securities, Inc.

Analyst

You mentioned non-raw materials. Robert L. Shanks - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: Oh, non-raw materials. I think we have a very strong cost performance across the business this year in North America. You saw the positive news and the same thing with Europe. You will see seasonal cost increases in the second half and I think you'll see some cost increases, for sure, coming from the new Super Duty, which is normal. We'll have the product-related costs that will come through in the second half of the year, which is not unusual in and of itself, but also remember we haven't updated this product in 19 years. So we're going to be coming out with a product that's going to really set the standard and be something that we can sustain over the next 5 to 10 years.

Rod A. Lache - Deutsche Bank Securities, Inc.

Analyst

Is that something that should be – should that be more benign than what we've been seeing with the F-Series and Edge and some of the other products that had a lot of content cost added, some of which was regulatory? Is there any color you can provide on the trajectory of that content cost related to regulatory? Robert L. Shanks - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: We will talk more about that when we get to the launch itself. And we've got an Investor Day, which happens to be about the same time, so I think we'll provide more insight and texture at that time. Mark Fields - President, CEO & Director: The only thing I would add on that, on the Super Duty, is just look at our performance on F-150, in terms of the content that we put in it and what it's driving in terms of revenue. Even in the quarter, the F-150, our average transaction price was up $1,700 year-over-year, so customers are really seeing that value. And that's the same approach the team is taking on Super Duty.

Rod A. Lache - Deutsche Bank Securities, Inc.

Analyst

Great. Thank you. Robert L. Shanks - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: Thanks, Rod.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of George Galliers of Evercore.

George Galliers - Evercore ISI

Analyst

Hi. Good morning, everyone. Two questions. The first one just on China, you reported a nice step up in the JV margin, which remains at a very strong level. What do you see as the sustainable margin for your China JV over coming quarters? And do you see improvements in mix and structural costs effectively compensating for lower net pricing or could margins move higher still? Robert L. Shanks - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: Yeah, I think we'll see very strong results for the course of the year, George, from China. I think the margins, I don't know if they will be at 16%, but they will be double digits. They will be very, very strong. I would suspect. It might be different by quarter because you get calendarization and volatility by quarter, but I think by the time we get to the end of the year, as we have shown in recent years we'll have very, very strong margins. I would add, when you look at that number and you look at the Asia Pacific results, you go what am I missing? The China JVs is not the total China profit for Ford. We incur engineering that we absorb and are reflected in the results for the region that we don't recover from the JVs until we actually start producing the vehicles years later. We're launching Lincoln. We've got other allocated costs that sort of, sit at the regional level that you wouldn't see there. So China very profitable for us and improving year-over-year, but I think you'll kind of, see very strong performance in JVs over the course of the year. How are we offsetting the effect of negative pricing? That's through a lot of cost efficiencies through the business and then we have been benefiting also from the very, very strong mix that we have and I think that will continue through the course of the year.

George Galliers - Evercore ISI

Analyst

Okay, thank you. And then also just with respect to Europe, I was wondering if you could give any indication on what Brexit, if it happens, might means for Ford given the importance of the U.K. market and your fixed cost basis and what strategy or plans do you have in place if it does indeed happen. Robert L. Shanks - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: Thanks, George. Well, when you look at the issue around the Brexit, obviously the U.K. is a very important market for us and what's important for us as a business is stability, particularly stability in trade, and that's important because that allows us to continue to build a strong business in the U.K, for the over 14,000 folks that are part of the Ford team there. And that's why our position has been that it's beneficial for the U.K. to be part of a single market, a reformed EU. In terms of what may or may not happen, we'll apply the same approach in the U.K. as we do in every other part of the world. Our aim is to keep up our businesses globally competitive. So wherever that referendum comes out, we'll do that.

George Galliers - Evercore ISI

Analyst

Thank you very much. Robert L. Shanks - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: Okay. Thanks, George.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of John Murphy of Bank of America Merrill Lynch.

John J. Murphy - Bank of America Merrill Lynch

Analyst

Good morning, guys. Robert L. Shanks - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: Good morning, John.

John J. Murphy - Bank of America Merrill Lynch

Analyst

Just a sort of a simple question on North America. I mean, when you look at the guidance of 9.5% or higher, that would, at the low end of the range, indicate a sort of, a mid-to-low 8% EBIT margin or pre-tax margin for the remainder of the year. As we think about this, and I know there's a lot of puts and takes and there's seasonality here, what I mean, should we kind of, focus a little bit more on the higher component of 9.5% or higher, or do you think that 9.5% is something we really should keep in our thought process? Robert L. Shanks - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: Well, again, let me just restate what the guidance says. It's not 9.5%; it's 9.5% or higher. So we do see upside potential from where we were last year and so we just need to let the year play out. We're in the first quarter. There's a lot of moving pieces, a lot of things that we have to manage. We will have, as I mentioned, lower production, which is normal. In the second half, we will have a launch, which will have an effect in the second half with all the benefits to come later, as Mark mentioned. But we think that we'll come in at 9.5% or higher, and I know Joe and the team are working as hard as humanly possible to make sure that we continue to get everything out of that business unit that we can and they certainly did in the first quarter. So we feel super good about where we are in the quarter and we'll have an extremely strong year. Mark Fields - President, CEO & Director: And we'll provide updates on this at the end of the second quarter when we do the second quarter call.

John J. Murphy - Bank of America Merrill Lynch

Analyst

Yeah. That's very helpful and thank you. And then on Europe, you kind of alluded to Russia not being as big a drag in the quarter. I was just curious, if you could put Russia in context in the European business, sort of, size and potential stability and recovery there because it seems like the rest of Europe is firing on all cylinders and if that ever stabilizes, as you could even see some real upside to Europe. Mark Fields - President, CEO & Director: Yep. (51:54) Just to put it into perspective from just a sales standpoint or a share standpoint. In Europe in total, our share was up a couple of tenths to, I think, about 8% in terms of market share. In Russia, we actually doubled our market share in the quarter from a year-ago period. We were about 3%. So you can do the math and see the impact from a volume standpoint. But our approach, as you know, in Russia going forward, we view that as it's going to be -- it's an important market. It will recover over time and the investments that we've made both on the product side and the distribution side and just the business structure itself. I think it will position us well for when the market does start to come back around and that will happen when commodities start coming back around. Robert L. Shanks - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: Yeah. I think it is a really good point. That is one of the, sort of, on its own a big profit opportunity for us, when the commodity cycle starts to turn.

John J. Murphy - Bank of America Merrill Lynch

Analyst

Okay. And then just lastly on slide 24, you gave us some great incremental data here on financial services at Ford Credit. As we look at the, sort of, the slight extension in terms that are happening in the industry but don't seem to be happening for you and then also look at, sort of, the percentage of loans that are above 73 months. Can you talk about what's going on with credit scores and the consumer that's being offered extended terms? Because it seems like that's only occurring in high credit quality consumers. And also maybe, if you could just comment on prepayment speeds as you've seen an extension in terms, because I think they have been picking up. Robert L. Shanks - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: I'll just give a high-level comment and then we'll let Marion supplement. What we are seeing and you touched on it, and I think we talked about it at Let's Chat, we are seeing these customers have very, very high FICO scores. These are really high-quality customers. The other thing that's interesting is we are seeing them come out of that contract early. They don't hang into the bitter end, if you will. And so we are also not seeing any signs here or in Canada, which is about 10 years ahead of us in terms of this trend, in terms of extending the trade cycle. So right now it just looks like these customers recognize it as being a good deal and they are taking it, but then they don't necessarily hold on to it as long as the contract would allow them to. So you're right in that the industry is higher. I think it is like a 17% mix or something like that. That's around these 73 months terms. We are not participating in that. We actually are offering in very small volume even 84 months. That's something that is out there as well, but again, I think you'll see us trending well below the industry as that trend continues. Marion, do you want to add anything?

Marion Harris - Chief Financial Officer

Analyst

No, I think you covered everything, Bob. Robert L. Shanks - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: Okay.

John J. Murphy - Bank of America Merrill Lynch

Analyst

Thank you very much.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Adam Jonas of Morgan Stanley. Adam Michael Jonas - Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC: Hey, everybody. Really strong quarter. Question on for Smart Mobility LLC, I think that you made some really important efforts to identify some of the opportunities as the industry changes and to put some of these technologies within a kind of captive company. The question is, is there a rationale to take the LLC and to separately capitalize it or create a tracking stock or some form, which has been done by large companies in the past in your industry and in others, as a way to kind of find a mechanism through which to attract and compensate employees that would be -- that you would be recruiting in that battle for talent that could be done in a more customized way outside the scope of the traditional forces that affect an auto industry's and auto company's performance? And I say that seeing thing, your stock up, you posted an incredibly strong result. Your multiple is still really, really low. Stock is up a percent and change. At some point does the capital – the mechanism through which you can raise and attract capital need to match the mission, if you follow? Mark Fields - President, CEO & Director: Thanks, Adam. And those are some really interesting thoughts. I think, first off, the reason we set up the LLC to begin with is we wanted it to be what I call separate, but connected, which is to allow the Ford Smart Mobility group to have the organization and the structure to face off with some of the tech and mobility companies in terms of acting really fast. And I think going forward, it's still way too early to…

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Brian Johnson of Barclays.

Brian A. Johnson - Barclays Capital, Inc.

Analyst

Good morning. Just want to go back to sort of more of the next five years in terms of North America and Europe. We seem to, as you've noted, had this heavy shift towards CUVs versus sedans; seems to be creating what some might call a sedan recession. So as you think about your mid-term capacity plans, putting aside NAFTA and political issues, just where do you think you need more CUV capacity? Do you have, and I know I keep coming back to this question, more ability to get additional factories to be able to flex between the two product lines? And then, as you kind of look across the industry, do you see maybe a risk of too much capacity coming in to the CUV category? Robert L. Shanks - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: So on the CUVs or SUVs, in terms of flexibility, clearly we've said, for example, we're going to come out with four SUVs in actually new segments over the next number of years. And what we're seeing, Brian, around the world, literally around the world, is this migration from passenger cars to small and medium and large-size SUVs and CUVs. So, clearly, our planning going forward is looking at the marketplace and making sure that we're there for consumers in that. So I think you'll see that here in the U.S. You'll see it in Europe and you will see it in Asia Pacific as well. In terms of your comment of will everybody be going there, well, I think that's the nature of the business right in terms of understanding where consumers are going. And that's why I keep bringing back to our strategy of how we are differentiating ourselves on fuel economy, safety, quality, and smart technology, and using our brand. And if you think about this, Brian, whether it's CUVs or SUVs, this really plays to kind of the sweet spot or really a strength of our brand. And we are seeing it now in our results and I think that will bode well going forward.

Brian A. Johnson - Barclays Capital, Inc.

Analyst

And will you be reducing car capacity and do you think – and will others do it such in a way to take some pressure off the car pricing? Robert L. Shanks - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: Well, I can't speak to others, but clearly, as I mentioned, when you think about the number of SUVs that we're going to be adding, you could see us do that. With the caveat, our approach as a company is to offer a full lineup of vehicles and that's for a couple of reasons. Obviously, one, to anticipate any changes in customer demand, any changes in the economic environment, or any changes in the regulatory environment.

Brian A. Johnson - Barclays Capital, Inc.

Analyst

And final question on this shift. What happens when someone comes in with a five-year-old car, maybe a Japanese brand car, that hasn't held its value and they're looking to get into one of your CUVs, are you hearing anything from the dealers about the need for trade-in allowances, underwater loans, or something to help that car buyer get into – car owner get into a CUV? Robert L. Shanks - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: I mean, we're not hearing anything above the normal kind of commentary we get from dealers on that, so nothing above the normal.

Brian A. Johnson - Barclays Capital, Inc.

Analyst

Means they always want money? Robert L. Shanks - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: Yes. That was the politically correct way of saying it, yes.

Brian A. Johnson - Barclays Capital, Inc.

Analyst

Okay. Thanks.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of David Whiston of Morningstar.

David Whiston - Morningstar, Inc.

Analyst

Thanks, good morning. Just one question on leasing and one question on Europe. Bob, your comments on leasing mix for Ford, if I heard right, you said it's going to be going down, your penetration will be going down throughout the year and I just want to know how much of that is a function of not having, say, AA type of credit rating versus standard residual value risk management and related, do you think the industry is being too excessive in its leasing penetration right now? Robert L. Shanks - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: For us it's -- we do have what we call the One Ford Lease Strategy, so we've got a lot of analytics behind what we think is the right and appropriate level of lease. We look -- because we are really -- we want to make sure we can support what the market needs, but we also want to make sure that we are managing the concentration of risk. We think that at 26% that will be sort of a high-water mark for us this year. And some of it is seasonal. When you get into the summer selling season, it tends to be much more of a – it's a retail season and it's very much around APRs and that sort of thing. So there is just a natural change that occurs in certain times of the year. But that's one of the reasons why we think when we get to the end of the year we will be at something probably a little above last year, but below where we are right now. And we think that's the right level given where the market is. The other thing I would mention is that, for us, there's a much lower percentage of leasing, in Ford anyway, on Super Duties and F-150s, on trucks, that has not been – that's been generally true across the industry. Although some of our competitors got pretty heavy on that in the first quarter in some of the regions of the country, we didn't participate in that. So I think that's another factor as well. It's just our natural mix of product.

David Whiston - Morningstar, Inc.

Analyst

Thanks. And on Europe, if I heard right, you said 60% of your passenger vehicle volume was on the high end trim packages, which is impressive. I was just curious is the European customer trading up in price given an economic recovery or are you just attracting wealthier customers than in the past? Mark Fields - President, CEO & Director: I think it's a combination, David, of both of those things.

David Whiston - Morningstar, Inc.

Analyst

Okay. Thank you. Mark Fields - President, CEO & Director: Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Itay Michaeli of Citi.

Itay Michaeli - Citigroup Global Markets, Inc.

Analyst

Good morning and congrats, everyone. Mark Fields - President, CEO & Director: Thank you, Itay.

Itay Michaeli - Citigroup Global Markets, Inc.

Analyst

Maybe just to continue on Europe, I mean given the improvement in mix and pricing, and I know there's a lot of political uncertainty out there, as well, for early in the year. But could this be a year where Q1 contributes, maybe what it used to contribute in terms of the quarterly cadence back in 2005-2006 when you were profitable in Europe? I mean what prevents this from being sustainable? Robert L. Shanks - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: Well, we think it is sustainable. I don't know if it's going to be sustainable at the margin, because we would expect again going back to what's normal. The second half in Europe is generally not as strong as the first half because of the summer shutdowns and the end of the year shutdowns, that seasonal cost effect that comes into play. But, yeah, we think that we're going to have a good second quarter. We think we'll be profitable throughout the year and we're going to have strong results in Europe. But we do think that there will be a first half stronger than second half story, but it's still going to be a great story all throughout the year for Europe. Mark Fields - President, CEO & Director: Which again is a normal kind of cadence of our profitability. Nothing unusual.

Itay Michaeli - Citigroup Global Markets, Inc.

Analyst

Absolutely, that's good to hear. Then maybe just going back quickly to North America. I know you alluded to year-end inventory targets. I know you don't provide an annual North America production outlook, but as we think – I think your first half was up about 11% in North America production. Any kind of ballpark of how we should be thinking about the full year in terms of a range or kind of roughly where you think you might come out as you manage through the launches and some of the inventory? Robert L. Shanks - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: No, I don't think we want to provide a guidance for the full year because we still have a lot of year left in front of us. I think we're just going to continue to manage the production in line with demand. You can see on Appendix A9, the call for the second quarter for North America, 850,000 units, that's up 35,000 from where we were a year ago and pretty much in line with where we were in the first quarter. So, I don't see anything unusual in the year progressing. Again, you'll have lower volume in the second half, for the reasons we've talked about throughout the call, just seasonal and also the effect of the Super Duty launch.

Itay Michaeli - Citigroup Global Markets, Inc.

Analyst

Okay, great. That's very helpful. Thanks so much. Mark Fields - President, CEO & Director: Thanks.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Joe Spak of RBC Markets.

Joseph R. Spak - RBC Capital Markets LLC

Analyst

Hi. Congrats on a really strong quarter. Robert L. Shanks - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: Thanks Joe.

Joseph R. Spak - RBC Capital Markets LLC

Analyst

First question is on commodities. I believe back in Detroit, you'd mentioned it would be a fairly neutral for the year. It was obviously up by almost $0.5 billion in the first quarter. Is there a change there? Or given that commodities are coming back up a little bit, do you expect to maybe give back a little of that in back half? Robert L. Shanks - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: What I said at the Deutsche Bank conference was that we would have favorable commodities on a year-over-year basis this year versus last year. It just wouldn't be as favorable as what it was in 2015 versus 2014. Getting to the neutral point, that was, the point that I was making was, that we have favorable commodities, not as great as last year, but we'd also have more headwinds from exchange in 2016 than what we saw in 2015. So that was the neutral bit. It was good news commodities would be offset by bad news on exchange. What I said earlier in the call, Joe, is that now we see commodities as being more favorable than what we thought, because the prices have continued to fall. So I think we will see commodities about as much of good news, based on where we are today, as we saw last year, which was over $900 million. But we will still have more bad news on a year-over-year basis from exchange. So the net of those two, while it will be positive, won't be as positive as it was in 2015 versus 2014.

Joseph R. Spak - RBC Capital Markets LLC

Analyst

Okay, thanks for the clarification. Then on Europe, it sounded like mid or long-term there is a little bit of a bump to that margin target, 3 to 5 to 6 to 8. Is it fair to think that maybe 1.5 or 2 points of that 3 points is related to the pension accounting change and then maybe 1 point is just from some better operations or mix outlook? Robert L. Shanks - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: Certainly the elimination of that drag that we had on pensions, which we were relatively unique compared to our peer set, that certainly helps. But actually what it is, it's our view of what we can get out of the business from a performance standpoint of change. The team has done a really, really good job on all the various aspects of the transformation plan, product, brand, and cost. And we see more potential now in terms of driving the business to the types of margins that we need than where we were perhaps two years ago. Mark Fields - President, CEO & Director: To put that into perspective, Joe, again we're using this momentum to really drive us towards those margins. Not only is the product launches that we have this year, but we're looking at the product portfolio we have. We are focusing on the products that have high growth and high profitability, and we will drop products that actually don't have either of those characteristics. At the same time, we are going to continue to work on the costs. As we've said before, we have a voluntary separation program going on right now in Europe which when all is said and done, should save us around $200 million a year annually going forward. So we're going to continue to work every element of that to make sure it's a sustainable and vibrant part of this. Robert L. Shanks - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: And I would just add. When we had that conversation in 2014, that was only about two years into the plan. So we didn't fully see the potential that we are now seeing from the business. The aspects of the plan are very much the same. It's just the team is really, really delivering and we see a lot more potential now for Europe than perhaps what we had before.

Joseph R. Spak - RBC Capital Markets LLC

Analyst

Okay. Thanks a lot, guys. Robert L. Shanks - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Colin Langan of UBS.

Colin Michael Langan - UBS Securities LLC

Analyst

Thanks for taking my questions and congrats on a great quarter. Mark Fields - President, CEO & Director: Thanks, Colin.

Colin Michael Langan - UBS Securities LLC

Analyst

I understand the comments about second half getting weaker from a seasonal cadence perspective, but how should we think about quarter-over-quarter? You are going off record margins in North America, you had $600 million accrual in Q1, and production in North America looks flat. So should Q2 also be a very strong quarter? And the same thoughts on Europe, it looks like production is even up quarter-over-quarter. Should Europe actually maintain a very strong level in Q2 and then fall off in the second half? Robert L. Shanks - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: The only thing that I will say about the second quarter is we expect it to be strong, but I don't want to get into calling quarters because I'm always wrong. But it will be a strong quarter. The first and second quarter, again going back to this theme around what's normal, they are the stronger quarters of the year. I would expect that to be the case this year. So we'll have a strong second quarter. I won't characterize it any way other than that. And then we'll have the seasonal effect in the second quarter, along with the product launch impact. And then a really, really strong year.

Colin Michael Langan - UBS Securities LLC

Analyst

Is there anything unusual in Q1 that we should be aware of going in North America and Europe that actually helped it out but that won't reoccur? Robert L. Shanks - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: No, I'm glad you asked that question, because there is actually nothing in the results in any of the business units that you would consider to be unusual. This is really quality earnings right across the board.

Colin Michael Langan - UBS Securities LLC

Analyst

Okay. And any color on – I saw in the press release you mentioned Ford passed this rolling out. How has that rollout gone? Is that going to be something you are going to advertise going forward? Any just color there on that launch? Mark Fields - President, CEO & Director: What we're doing, Colin, right now is, we should be launching that in the next month or so and we are very excited about it. Think about, we will obviously communicate it, because we think it really provides a way for us to have a fundamentally different relationship, not only with our customers, but customers that don't own Fords. And so what you will see is, think about it this way, it's a launch, but then we'll be continually improving it to improve the experience for our customers.

Colin Michael Langan - UBS Securities LLC

Analyst

Okay. Thank you very much for the color. Robert L. Shanks - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: Thanks, Colin.

Operator

Operator

Your last question comes from the line of Keith Naughton of Bloomberg.

Keith Naughton - Bloomberg LP

Analyst

Good morning. Mark Fields - President, CEO & Director: Good morning, Keith.

Keith Naughton - Bloomberg LP

Analyst

Hey, Mark, there has been some headlines recently that have said that the Ford did not plan to offer a 200-mile electric car to compete with the likes of the Tesla Model 3 and the Chevy Bolt. And I just wanted you to clarify, does Ford plan to offer a long-range electric vehicle? Mark Fields - President, CEO & Director: Absolutely. Our approach, very simply, is we want to make sure that we are either among the leaders or a leadership position in the product segments that we are in. And if you look at our BEV today, our Focus has about a 100-mile range and that is very competitive for the price point that it's at in the marketplace right now. And that's why, as you know, we've made the announcement late last year where we're going to invest another $4.5 billion into our vehicle lineup on electrification. And by the time we end the decade, we will have 40% of our nameplates around the world that will be electrified and they will be very competitive from a cost, quality, range standpoint to allow us to move the business forward.

Keith Naughton - Bloomberg LP

Analyst

And will your long-range electrical vehicle go 200 miles and when will that come? Mark Fields - President, CEO & Director: Well, our electric vehicle will be, as I said, it comes down as we want to make sure we are among the best or the leaders in those areas. So in that timeframe, when you look at some of the competitors, what they've announced, clearly that's something that we want to – we are developing for.

Keith Naughton - Bloomberg LP

Analyst

Thank you, Mark. Mark Fields - President, CEO & Director: Thanks.

Operator

Operator

This concludes the Q&A portion of today's call. I would now like to turn it back over to Mark for any closing remarks. Mark Fields - President, CEO & Director: No. Thank you very much.

Operator

Operator

This concludes today's conference call. You may now disconnect.