FORD MOTOR COMPANY

Table of Contents

Ford Motor Company had a very rough beginning. One of the company’s founders Henry Ford started the Detroit Automobile Company in 1899. That company did not do so well and in 1901 the company was reorganized as the Henry Ford Company. Henry Ford then had a falling out with his financial backers and decided to leave with the name and 900 dollars. On June 16,1903 Ford Motor Company was Incorporated, with 12 investors owning a total of 1000 shares. Henry Ford and his partner each held 255 shares or 51%, John S Grey held 105, John W. Anderson held 50 shares, Horace Rackham 50 shares, Horace and John Dodge each held 50 shares, Charles T. Bennett, John C Fry, Albert Sterlow, James Couzens, and Charles J. Woodall each held 50 shares in the new company. At the company’s first stock holder meeting John Grey was elected President and Henry Ford was elected Vice President and James Couzens was elected secretary. Ford was profitable almost immediately bringing investors almost 300% profit in the two years that the company had been around. By 1905 the profits totaled $300,000. However, there were internal problems mostly all the investors except Ford and Couzens had other businesses that they needed to attend to. Things became real tense when the principal stockholders had different opinions on which way the company would be going. Grey who was the president sided with Ford and by 1906 Malcomson was basically shut out of the company and he decided to sell his shares to Ford and John Grey died unexpectedly in 1906 and Henry Ford took over the role of President. During the early years Ford had a very extremely high turnover rate due to the demands that were placed on