TOKYO — Two giant automakers tied in
an uneasy alliance — Japan’s Nissan and France’s Renault — announced on Monday
that they had struck a deal to make their relationship more equitable, ending a
yearslong power struggle that contributed to the downfall of the alliance’s
former leader, Carlos Ghosn.
اضافة اعلان
The agreement opens a path for the
companies to increase cooperation in the growing market for electric vehicles,
a critical area for the alliance as it seeks to respond to changing regulations
and the challenges posed by upstart competitors like Tesla and China’s BYD,
which have vaulted past traditional automakers in the race to meet consumer
demand for battery-powered cars.
Nissan said that the agreement was “an
important milestone in its discussions with
Renault Group on defining new
foundations for their partnership”, which has been dominated by the French
automaker since 1999, when it bailed out the foundering Japanese company.
Renault eventually built up a 43 percent
stake in Nissan with voting rights on its board, while Nissan held only a 15
percent stake in Renault and no voting rights.
The arrangement has long been a sore spot
for Nissan, which produces far more cars than Renault and argued it deserved to
have a more equivalent role in the relationship.
The agreement, Nissan said, would
effectively equalize the companies’ shareholdings. Both would now hold 15
percent of the other, with Renault’s additional shares going into a French
trust. The trust would be under no obligation to sell them, it said.
The agreement, Nissan said, would effectively equalize the companies’ shareholdings. Both would now hold 15 percent of the other…
The companies will now also have equal
voting rights, Nissan said.
Additionally, Nissan agreed to invest in Ampere,
a Renault spinoff focused on developing electric vehicles and software. The
company is expected to be publicly listed later this year.
The final agreement is pending approval by
both companies’ boards.
The agreement is critical for the
electric-vehicle ambitions of Renault, which is seeking to harness the
engineering prowess and expertise of Nissan. In 2010, the Japanese automaker
began producing the world’s first successful mass-market battery-electric
vehicle, the Leaf, giving it a lead in the field that Renault cannot match.
A power struggleThe power imbalance between Renault and
Nissan was widely seen as a catalyst for the downfall of Ghosn, who has said
that he was the victim of a coup by Nissan insiders who feared he would merge
the two companies. Ghosn fled Japan for Lebanon in late 2019 after being
arrested on charges of financial wrongdoing related to his role as head of the
alliance.
For a time, the incident looked like it
could end the alliance. But the economic blow of the pandemic forced the
companies to draw closer together.
Last year, Renault and Nissan, along with
their third alliance partner, Mitsubishi, agreed to throw themselves into the
development of electric vehicles, with plans to release 35 battery-electric
models by 2030.
But Nissan was slow to agree to invest in
Ampere. After media reports last fall revealed that Nissan and Renault were at
loggerheads over the project, Renault released a statement saying that the two
sides were discussing “a set of strategic common initiatives across markets,
products, and technologies”, including Nissan’s role in the new company.
On Monday, Renault also called the deal
with Nissan “an important milestone” in the course of the manufacturers’
partnership.
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