Skip to main content

Nissan and Renault are close to an agreement.

 

Renault and Nissan

Agreement is close to a critical first step that would require Renault to cut its stake in Nis­san, equalising the car­makers’ hold­ings in each other as well as their vot­ing rights, say people close to the talks. The break­through comes after months of stale­mate and fol­lows a show­down between Nis­san chief Makoto Uchida and its non-exec­ut­ive dir­ect­ors, who deman­ded he take a stricter approach to talks over the future of the 23-year-old alli­ance. Under the pro­spect­ive deal, equal­ising the stakes would be com­bined with Nis­san’s approval for Renault to carve out its leg­acy com­bus­tion engine busi­ness in part­ner­ship with China’s Geely and, poten­tially, with Saudi Ara­mco as investors, the people said. Renault is also set to spin off its elec­tric vehicle busi­ness, which Nis­san could invest in later down the line.


Luca de Meo and Jean-Domi­n­ique Senard, chief exec­ut­ive and chair of Renault, are set to visit Japan next week in the hope they can settle the last details before an alli­ance board meet­ing next Thursday and a formal announce­ment in Feb­ru­ary, the people added. However, some senior Nis­san exec­ut­ives still view that timetable as optim­istic, they said. Since its incep­tion in 1999, when Renault saved Nis­san from near bank­ruptcy, the alli­ance has delivered cost sav­ings and other syn­er­gies but also deman­ded con­stant nav­ig­a­tion of rival­ries and con­front­a­tion. Nis­san, mean­while, would recover the vot­ing rights attached to its stake in Renault.


Though Renault loses influ­ence on paper and will earn less from Nis­san dividend pay­outs, it has had little sway at the Japan­ese group in recent years, people close to the com­pany have said. Renault is hop­ing instead to rebuild good­will to push ahead with more joint oper­a­tional projects. The French state has a 15 per cent stake in Renault.

www.sba.tax

Comments

Cloud Bookkeeping

US FED rate rise.

  The US Federal Reserve officials have indicated that they plan to resume increasing interest rates to control inflation in the world's biggest economy. During the June meeting, the Federal Open Market Committee reached a consensus to keep interest rates stable for the time being to evaluate whether further tightening of policy would be necessary. However, the majority of the committee anticipates that additional rate increases will be required in the future. The minutes of the meeting have recently been made public. According to the minutes, most participants believed maintaining the federal funds rate at 5 to 5.25 per cent was appropriate or acceptable, despite some individuals wanting to raise the acceleration due to slow progress in cooling inflation. Although Fed forecasts predicted a mild recession starting later in the year, policymakers faced challenges in interpreting data that showed a tight job market and only slight improvements in inflation. Additionally, officials gr...

EU business slide.

  S&P Global’s flash eurozone composite purchasing managers’ index, a key gauge of business conditions for the manufacturing and services sector, fell 1 point to 47.1, figures showed yesterday. That is its lowest level since November 2020 and the fourth consecutive month below the crucial 50 mark separating growth from contraction. One of the few bright spots in the survey was that companies in all sectors reported a slight easing of cost pressures, price growth and supply chain constraints. However, prices charged for goods and services still rose at the sixth fastest rate since such data started in 2002. Jobs growth increased marginally from October but remained low compared with the past 18 months. Following a few months of falling price pressure in manufacturing and services, the October print shows an overall stabilisation said Jens Eisenschmidt, chief European economist at Morgan Stanley. However, German businesses, at the hub of Europe’s energy crisis, reported that manu...

India- UK trade deal.

  According to India's top trade official, talks with the UK regarding a trade agreement are progressing well, despite obstacles related to temporary work visas and the opening up industries like automotive and spirits. The Commerce and Industry Minister, Piyush Goyal, explained that India is seeking transition periods or greater market access in specific sectors due to its economy, which is slightly larger than the UK's and expected to outgrow it in the coming decades. If a trade deal is reached, it would be one of the most significant agreements for Britain since leaving the EU, and it would also be necessary for India, which surpassed the UK as the fifth-largest economy last year. Goyal stated that India aims to increase its economy from $3.5tn to $35tn by 2047, the country's centenary of independence. According to officials and diplomats in India, talks about a proposed trade deal may be finished by early September, just in time for the G20 summit in New Delhi. Nigel Hu...