Ford selling out

The Mazda3 has just been previewed while Ford is announcing it is shedding the majority of its shares in the company.

Just as General Motors has bailed out of Suzuki to raise more than $350 million, the blue oval brand is hoping to make more than $700 million from its new move.

It is reducing its stake in Mazda from 33.4 per cent to just over 13 per cent, in a move announced yesterday in Detroit.

The potential sale was first raised more than a month ago but, at the time, Ford refused to confirm any cut in its Mazda shareholding.

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But further financial troubles in the USA, where Ford has joined calls for a major $US25 billion government bailout, has forced it to move.

There is no single buyer for the Mazda shares, but Japanese reports are pointing to a buy-in by the Sumitomo and Itochu trading houses and other financial institutions.

However Mazda is looking to buy back a significant stake in its own future and has emerged as one of the biggest bidders.

"It's good to be able to buy back your own shares," the spokesman for Mazda Australia, Glenn Butler, says in Los Angeles ahead of the global unveiling of the new Mazda3 tomorrow.

Ford became Mazda's saviour in the late 1980s when the company became a victim of over-ambitious expansion plans and the Asian economic meltdown. It was already a significant shareholder but took outright control when it expanded its stake to 33.4 per cent.

The Ford move came at around the same time as former president, expatriate Australian Jac Nasser, was also buying up Jaguar, Land Rover and Aston Martin to create the one-time Premier Automotive Group.

Ford has since sold-off its British assets, most recently to Tata of India, but company chief Alan Mulally said recently in Australia that there was no plan to jetison Mazda.

But that has changed with the American automotive crisis.

"Ford is looking to sell around 20 per cent of the company. Once Mazda has its share, the rest will go onto the open market," says Butler.

"But there are three or four key buyers lined up in Japan. It will be interesting to see what happens."

In any case, he sees minimal change in Mazda's strategic direction or the company's operation in Australia.

"Mazda and Ford's strategic relationship will continue into the forseeable future," he says.