Renault will reduce its stake in Nissan from 43.4% to 15% to put the two automakers on an equal footing after months of difficult negotiations, the companies announced on Monday.
Nissan Motor Co and Renault confirmed the readjustment, which the Japanese company had been asking for for a long time, to solve a source of conflict, as part of a restructuring of the alliance with the French group, according to an official statement.
renault will transfer 28.4% of the shares it owns in Nissan to a fund based in France, keeping a 15% stake, equivalent to to what Nissan has in the French automaker.
Voting rights “will be neutralized” for most decisions, the two companies said.
Nissan described the restructuring as a move toward “balanced governance and cross-shareholding to promote operational efficiency.”
The Nissan-Renault alliance began in 1999, when the French company invested around four billion dollars (3.7 billion euros) in the Japanese manufacturer, which was experiencing financial difficulties at the time.
The disparity in the shares of the two companies was a source of friction because, despite having become much more profitable than Renault, Nissan had no voting rights in the French manufacturer.
Nissan will invest to become a “strategic shareholder” in Ampere, a company that French Renault is creating to exclusively manufacture electric vehicles, the same statement added.
The agreement, which involved negotiations in other areas of cooperation, such as the strengthening of Nissan’s operations in Europe, India and Latin America, still has to be approved by the boards of Renault, Nissan and Mitsubishi Motors, the company also part of the alliance. . .
Renault and Nissan have been negotiating new cooperation formulas since the end of 2018when the former president of the two companies Carlos Ghosn, one of the main architects of the alliance, was fired after being arrested in Japan for alleged tax irregularities.
Source: Observadora
