LONDON ¨C Like a practitioner of the Japanese art of kabuki, Emmanuel Macron¡¯s administration is going through some elaborate dance steps to try to shape the future of the Renault-Nissan carmaking alliance. The French president wants to protect the jobs of his citizens, as well as taxpayer money and France¡¯s credibility as an industrial investor. It¡¯s been an incredibly clumsy performance.
France controls 30 percent of the voting rights in Renault SA and would like to tempt Nissan Motor Co. into a full-blown merger to heal the rift exposed by the downfall of Carlos Ghosn, the former Renault boss and architect of the two companies¡¯ alliance. Nissan is having none of it. According to Bloomberg News, the Japanese company rebuffed the idea in April and remains opposed. Tokyo¡¯s view seems to be that the alliance already has the benefits of scale and cost savings, and a merger wouldn¡¯t add much.
Nissan¡¯s argument may be unconvincing in terms of its financial logic (a full-blown merger would obviously allow for fewer overlaps), but it should surprise nobody. Paris¡¯s dream of combining Renault and Nissan helped trigger the Ghosn crisis in the first place, with the former alliance boss pushing for a deal before his arrest in November.
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