Last week, France’s Renault, which holds a 36 percent stake in Nissan, urged its Japanese partner to negotiate a higher premium on its stake to account for Honda taking control. Renault also pressured Nissan not to drag out talks, out of concern it needed to focus on reviving its business.
Nissan had originally pitched the deal as “a merger of equals” to convince factions inside the group to integrate with Honda, but people close to Renault said it was essentially Honda taking control.
Nissan’s weak financial performance has led to its market capitalization collapsing to a fifth of Honda’s, skewing the balance of power in negotiations.
The talks were also triggered after Taiwanese iPhone contract manufacturer Foxconn approached Renault about acquiring part of its stake in Nissan late last year. Renault had been offloading its shareholding in Nissan following a restructuring of their 25-year alliance in 2023.
Nissan shares surged 7 percent and Honda’s were up 3.5 percent on Wednesday after Japanese media first reported the new proposal.
During the press conference unveiling merger talks in December, Honda chief Toshihiro Mibe said a holding company structure was needed to protect both brands, even though Honda would initially take the lead.
He warned multiple times that the merger would only proceed if Nissan successfully executed a turnaround plan that involved cutting production capacity by 20 percent and shedding 9,000 jobs.
Honda and Nissan said in statements on Wednesday that they had originally planned to finalize and announce the direction of their management integration by the end of January, but that plan has been pushed back to mid-February.
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