The cases of champagne had been received, the speeches of self-congratulations put down on paper, and the financial analysts were in the starting blocks to dissect the agreement which was to unveil on Wednesday December 7 the new shareholder balance of the Renault-Nissan Alliance. . The ace. Despite months of negotiations at loggerheads, and while everything seemed set to the millimeter, the “Nissan boys”, led by their general manager Makoto Uchida, demanded extra time to check a few final details.
“It will not be done before mid-December … if we ever manage to finalize”, blows a Renault executive who we feel is somewhat bristling by the procrastination of Nissan negotiators. After more than twenty years of partnership, the leaders of the French flagship should however have become accustomed to the famous “komakai” of the Japanese business world: an extreme attention to the smallest detail supposed to guarantee reliable partnerships over time… which has driven more than one Western businessman crazy.
Reset counters
The main lines of the – very probable – agreement are nevertheless known. Renault would have accepted the idea of a shareholder balance and would thus reduce its stake in Nissan from 43% to 15%. The diamond firm would place the remaining 28%, which would be stripped of all power, in a trust. The Japanese manufacturer would be granted voting rights on the 15% it owns in Renault, whereas this was not the case until then. Something to reset the counters to zero. The former board would have the possibility of gradually selling its 28%, but also of keeping them to continue to collect the dividends linked to these actions.
“Renault would have no interest in selling these shares all at once because the price, already very low, would then fall heavily, underlines Philippe Houchois, financial analyst at Jefferies. Would Nissan not be tempted to buy back its own shares? “They may be tempted, but they don’t have the necessary funds,” retorts the analyst.By “freezing” these shares, the two partners are also ensuring that they will not be bought by a fund. investment or by a competing manufacturer, which could then invite itself to the board of directors of Nissan and add complexity to an Alliance which aspires to regain a little serenity.
Ever since former Renault-Nissan Alliance boss Carlos Ghosn was arrested one morning in November 2018 on the tarmac at Tokyo airport for alleged financial malfeasance, the mood between the two partners has indeed been. of the heaviest. The arrival of Jean-Dominique Senard as president of the tricolor flagship in January 2019 did put some oil in the wheels, but it did not last long. The return of the idea of a merger, hated by the Japanese leaders, quickly pointed the Nissans, who accused Senard of playing the arsonist firefighters. Then the beginning of the engagement between Renault and Fiat Chrysler – the latter will finally marry PSA to create the Stellantis group – without telling Nissan, will complete the atmosphere between the two allies. “Before the arrival of Luca de Meo as CEO of Renault, a real “car maker” [NDLR : spécialiste de l’automobile]the Japanese leaders no longer exchanged with their French counterparts, because they considered that they had no one at their level”, says a Renault executive. “Let’s say that since his arrival [NDLR : à l’été 2020]the Alliance has gone from the stage of brain death to that of intensive care: it’s better, but it is still far from being able to frolic”, image a financial analyst.
The worm was in the fruit from the creation of the covenant
But has this famous Alliance ever worked since its creation in 1999? “Louis Schweitzer had pulled off a very nice industrial and financial coup by flying to the rescue of a Nissan then on the verge of bankruptcy, but much bigger than the Renault he was managing. His only mistake: having underestimated the resentment of the Japanese” , says a former close guard of Schweitzer. “To have been saved by a smaller manufacturer, which is more Western, was experienced as a humiliation in Japan”, says a former Renault employee at the time. An undigested humiliation that will result in constant resistance. “I was sent to Japan to merge the software tools of the two groups: the meetings went very well, my contacts at Nissan said yes to everything… and the next day they did the exact opposite of what I had They were very competent people, but they spent their time rolling me in flour, “recalls laughing François Pistre, at the time director of IT services at Renault. Twenty years later, everyone still works with their own software…
On the engineering side, everyone obviously thinks they are better than the other and the slightest change translates into miles of meetings. “And Carlos Ghosn tended to oppose the teams, thinking that it would push everyone to sublimate themselves. A mistake, it only widened the gap between them”, recalls Jean-Pierre Corniou, ex-Renault, today now Deputy Managing Director of Sia Partners. A gap that has become abyssal over the years. “When Carlos Ghosn was arrested, I was in Japan, among Japanese consultants: I saw them open a bottle of champagne in front of me,” recalls a consultant who worked for Renault. But let’s not caricature either. Not everything is to be thrown away in this tormented marriage. The pooling of purchases and common platforms for the development of several models have enabled the two groups to make significant savings. “And Renault has greatly improved the efficiency of its factories by taking inspiration from the Nissan Production Way”, emphasizes Jean-Pierre Corniou.
The most optimistic observers want to believe that with the new shareholder balance, the two manufacturers will finally be able to consider themselves as true partners and move from permanent confrontation to fruitful collaboration. “The Alliance could go even further on what is already working well, such as purchases, and there are several dozen very concrete projects, identified, which are just waiting to be launched”, assures a good connoisseur of the file. “And the money that Renault will collect by selling its Nissan shares, if it is well used, could allow it to make a new start”, underlines Philippe Houchois. Finally, if the Japanese negotiators finally decide to sign!