Ford shares report on potential offshoot of electric car business

shares Ford Motor It jumped more than 5% during trading Friday morning after a report that CEO Jim Farley is weighing whether to separate his 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 separating one from the other, Bloomberg News reported, citing people familiar with the efforts.

Ford shares rose as much as 5.4% to $18.48 on Friday, before settling at $18.11 a share, up 3.3%.

Ford did not immediately respond to comment.

The report comes weeks after Bloomberg announced that the company had assessed the occurrence of the downturn A small part of her electric vehicle business As part of the reorganization in an effort to capture the value investors give some of the electric car startups.

Any part of any of the operations would be in sharp contrast to Ford’s largest competitor in the United States, general motors. General Motors executives said the automaker has no plans at this time to separate its electric car business despite pressure from Wall Street to do so.

In November 2020, GM President Mark Royce said the company had analyzed the potential of the spin-off and decided it would Not be the right thing for her businessciting the costs as well as the benefits of having EV operations still part of the larger company.