MAY 6, 2009

BMW does well-ish

BMW has announced a loss in the first quarter of 2009 of $73.7m, but this was greeted as good news by the stock exchanges which had been expecting worse figures. The company's chief executive officer Norbert Reithofer said at the announcement that there were no signs to suggest that the market will recover until at least next year. The results are a tribute to the financial management of the company, given the 20% drop in sales. The company has dropped its production by a third. This compared favourably to rival Mercedes-Benz which reported a massive loss of $1.86bn in the first quarter of the year.

With the emphasis in Munich being on keeping the cash flow positive, there is constant pressure on the F1 programme to produce good results. The team has done a remarkable job in the last two seasons, but this year things have gone awry. The team intends to introduce a completely new aerodynamic package in Spain - and will stop development of KERS for the next few races, in order to concentrate on getting the cars working better before concentrating too much effort on the new systems.