Automotive News Europe — 2023-12-12
Automotive Industry
Renault is selling a 5% stake in Nissan, the first stage of a planned disposal of its holding in the Japanese automaker as part of a wider rebalancing of the companies' long-standing alliance.
The move will be the first tranche of a series of share sales by Renault to reduce its Nissan stake to 15% from around 43%. To do so, it has placed 28.4% in a trust and is expected to sell down that holding gradually.
Renault said on Wednesday that the capital loss resulting from the disposal of the first chunk of its Nissan stake will amount to around €1 bn ($1.08 bn) after the transaction was executed via a share buyback.
The figure is significantly lower than the "up to €1.5 bn" estimate given on Tuesday. Renault said the lower impact was due to Nissan cancelling all the acquired shares.
Renault and Nissan finalized at the end of July the terms of a restructuring of their alliance after months of negotiations, aiming for a downsized, but more pragmatic and agile partnership with equal cross-shareholdings of 15%.
The partnership was jolted in 2018 by the arrest of Carlos Ghosn, chairman of both companies. Since then, they have drifted apart and are now charting separate paths.
The cash will bolster Ampere, Renault’s electric-vehicle and software arm, as CEO Luca de Meo seeks to split off the unit and list it as a separate public entity as soon as April or May. Nissan has agreed to invest in Ampere.
For Nissan, the buyback is well within the value of cash and equivalents, which stood at 1.6 tn yen ($11 bn) at the end of September.
The move was "in line with Nissan’s commitment to enhancing shareholder returns and capital efficiency," Nissan said.