Ford looks to boost credit rating

One of Detroit's Big Three automakers recently announced that it was close to boosting its credit rating from junk bond status. Bloomberg reports that Ford Motor Company, the fourth largest issuer of junk bonds last year, is attempting to lower its financing costs and achieve an "investment-grade" rating by 2012, according the Eric Selle, a JP Morgan Chase debt analyst. In an interview with the news source, Ford Treasurer Neil Schloss said that the new auto industry financing rating would make the company more desirable to investors. "There is a very large investment-grade investor base who today cannot or will not buy our unsecured debt because of ratings," said Schloss in an interview with the news source. "When you're investment grade, you're thought of well, but when you're non-investment grade, the capital markets think of you as speculative." Ford was just one of the automakers in New York for a recent auto show. The 2011 New York International Automobile Show, the oldest event of its kind, drew more than 1 million people who saw new cars introduced for the first time.