Visteon sees layoffs from Ford production cuts

By David Bailey

DETROIT (Reuters) - Visteon Corp.'s (VC.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) chief executive said on Tuesday the parts maker has laid off workers following former parent Ford Motor Co.'s (F.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) latest production cuts, and it expects to announce more layoffs.

Ford's fourth-quarter reductions cut deeper than expected, but Visteon will feel a much lighter impact than it would have before its 2005 restructuring deal with Ford, CEO Michael Johnston said of the layoffs, both temporary and permanent.

"We've had some announcements at some local plants where we've reduced shifts and laid off some folks and we'll take the normal actions that any supplier would take given a large customer reducing volumes the way that they did," Johnston said at the Reuters Autos Summit in Detroit.

The cutbacks will vary, but have been less than a couple of hundred workers each at certain plants where they have been disclosed, he said, adding that not all facilities have been notified.

"Certainly, the impact on us this year is significantly softened from where it was a couple of years ago when we had all those plants that were dedicated really 100 percent to Ford," Johnston said.

Visteon in 2005 reached a deal to return nearly two dozen facilities to Ford and sever ties to roughly 18,000 high-wage union workers it had been leasing from Ford under the terms of Visteon's spinoff in 2000.

The parts maker now has about 49,000 workers, including 10,000 hourly and salaried employees, and 18 plants in the United States.

The Ford agreement dramatically changed Visteon's focus and slashed annual revenue by about 40 percent to roughly $11 billion in 2006 even as it reduced Visteon's reliance on Ford. Ford also provided cash to continue Visteon's restructuring.  Continued...