Ford has made the moderately difficult decision to wind down the Mercury brand. For years, the brand has offered mere replicas of Ford-branded products, but little else. Without Mercury, Ford will be able to devote more resources to its core products, and to its Lincoln brand.
Unfortunately, shutting down Mercury is not without substantial costs. Ford’s CFO, Lewis Booth, estimated that the process will cost about $500 million.
The bulk of the cost will go toward buying out 700 of the 1,700 Mercury dealers. This will equate to as much as $200,000 per dealership.
Mercury has long struggled to produce sales and Ford would have likely spent more money in order to revamp its product lineup, as opposed to shuttering the brand. For years the there were signs that Ford needed to focus on its core, bread-and-butter products. Now the company continues to do exactly that.
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