Ford shares pop on report of potential spinoff of EV business

Shares of Ford Motor jumped by more than 5% during trading Friday morning following a report that CEO Jim Farley is weighing whether to separate its electric vehicle business from the automaker’s traditional engine operations.

Farley wants to separate Ford’s electric operations from its internal-combustion engine business and has considered spinning off one or the other, Bloomberg News reported, citing people familiar with the efforts.

Shares of Ford were up by as much as 5.4%, to $18.48, Friday, before leveling off during afternoon trading to close at $18.04 a share, up by 2.9%.

Ford has no plans to spin off its electric vehicle business or its traditional ICE business, the company said in an emailed statement.

The report comes weeks after Bloomberg reported the company had evaluated spinning off a small portion of its EV business as a part of a reorganization in an effort to capture value that investors have been awarding some EV startups.

A spinoff of any of the operations would be in sharp contrast to Ford’s largest U.S.-based rival, General Motors. GM executives have said the automaker has no plans at this time to spin off its electric vehicle business despite pressure from Wall Street to do so.

In November 2020, GM President Mark Reuss said the company analyzed the potential of a spinoff and determined it would not be the right thing for its business, citing costs as well as benefits of having the EV operations remain part of the larger company.