Renault and Nissan sign near-divorce
Sophie Fay Philippe Mesmer
Pending board approvals, the French carmaker will cut its stake in its Japanese partner from 43% to 15% in a reset of their two-decade-old alliance that will put them on equal footing.
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Le Monde.fr
The terms of a new relationship between Renault and Nissan are now in place. The alliance's entity through which Renault, Nissan and junior partner Mitsubishi work together held a videoconference on Thursday, January 26. On Monday, giving in to the pressure from stock exchange authorities after numerous leaks to the media, the carmakers issued statements announcing that discussions had reached a "major milestone."

Negotiations had been ongoing since the spring of 2022. Board meetings are scheduled for this week and a presentation to financial analysts is to take place on February 6, in London.

The British capital was chosen as 'neutral ground' as neither Yokohama nor Paris were deemed suitable. Amsterdam was also out of the question as it was where Carlos Ghosn, the former Renault and alliance chief executive who fled to Lebanon following his arrest in Japan in 2019, had installed the alliance's headquarters.

Will the agreement come as a restart to the relationship between Renault and Nissan or is it a thinly veiled divorce?

Renault executives, Jean-Dominique Senard (chairman) and Luca De Meo (CEO), are still trying to "sell" the new partnership with Nissan and Mitsubishi as a "strengthening of ties" deal and a "revival" of the alliance even though the French group has agreed to reduce its stake in Nissan from 43.4% to 15%, the equivalent of Nissan's current stake in Renault. The agreement states that reciprocal shareholding will be capped at 15% in capital and voting rights.

On Nissan's side, the tone is quite different even though the Japanese management is trying not to embarrass the French. The discussions lasted so long "because twenty years of partnership are not so easily unraveled, a divorce is always complicated," according to a source close to the Japanese manufacturer.

From Nissan's perspective, the deal, which the Japanese government wanted to see endorsed by a letter from the French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire, enables it to "regain its independence."

Ending the 'unequal treaty'

Nissan's teams never really agreed to Renault's control on March 27, 1999, in a shrewd deal led by Louis Schweitzer, then chairman and CEO of Renault. The Japanese group, on the verge of bankruptcy at the time, was initially supposed to be acquired by Daimler, a German group that Nissan considered as its technological equal, unlike Renault.

But Daimler backtracked. Even if Nissan subsequently recovered spectacularly under the leadership of Carlos Ghosn, becoming much bigger and more profitable than Renault, the mistrust remained.