Vanguard Group, one of the world’s largest asset managers, increased its position in the Detroit automaker Ford Motor Co. in the first quarter of the year, a new regulatory filing showed on Wednesday.
After acquiring over 57 million Ford shares at $9.90 each in the final quarter of last year, the $10 trillion money manager increased its stake again between January and March, closing the first three months with 457,660,261 shares.
With the acquisition of over 55 million shares in the first quarter, Vanguard holds now 11.71% of Ford’s outstanding shares.
The asset manager is Ford’s largest institutional shareholder, followed by BlackRock — the world’s largest asset manager — with over 292 million shares, and State Street with nearly 178 million shares, both as of Dec. 31.
Ford shares are trading 2% lower on Wednesday morning at $9.94 on Tuesday, giving the automaker a market capitalization of just above $39.5 billion.
Earlier this Wednesday, Wolfe Research analyst Emmanuel Rosner upgraded the firm’s rating on Ford’s stock from Underperform to Peerperform. On Tuesday, Trump pledged potential tariff relief.
In a new research note, Rosner stated that “Ford shares have outperformed the broader market YTD [year to date], as well as their D3 peers [Detroit-based General Motors and Stellantis].”
According to the analyst, Ford is “relatively insulated from tariff risk given their U.S.-centric manufacturing base.”
The brand’s domestic production stands at 77%, importing only 23%, while GM sources 49% of its U.S.-sold vehicles from Mexico, Canada and other regions.
Jim Farley, Ford’s CEO, told CNN earlier this Wednesday that the company has “worked with his [Trump’s] team like every day for the last couple months and at a very high level of engagement.”
“The administration knows Ford’s a bit different,” Farley stated, before adding that “Bill Ford’s [the company’s president] talked to the [U.S.] President a couple of times” and that a solution is “going to take a little time.”
“We’re all trying to figure this out to do the right thing for the country and it’s going to take a little time. But we never left the U.S. I guess that’s my point. We just never left,” he added.
Farley said the company has been speaking with the other Detroit automakers to find a common solution. “We’ve also been working with Mary [Barra, GM’s CEO] and Stellantis too as a group, because we recognize how important this moment is to get this all right and kind of figure it out together.”
