Honda and Nissan have formally confirmed rumors that they are pursuing a merger, the businesses wrote in a joint press launch. Every would proceed to function below its personal model, however with a brand new joint holding firm as guardian. If Nissan-controlled Mitsubishi additionally got here on board, the mixed group would change into the world’s third largest automaker by gross sales quantity and have a internet value of as much as $50 billion.
“Today marks a pivotal moment as we begin discussions on business integration that has the potential to shape our future,” mentioned Nissan CEO Makoto Uchida.
Integration talks are nonetheless preliminary, however the corporations are urgent ahead. “We are still at the stage of starting our review and we have not decided on a business integration yet,” mentioned Honda director Toshihiro Mibe. Nonetheless, he added that the businesses goal “to find a direction for the possibility of business integration by the end of January 2025.” After that, they hope to have a “definitive agreement” regarding enterprise integration by June 2025. Approval should come from every firm’s shareholders and is topic to Nissan executing a turnaround.
Nissan and Honda beforehand introduced plans to work collectively on EV elements and software program improvement, however the joint firm can be much more built-in. Based on the press launch, the plan consists of: standardizing car platforms; unifying analysis and improvement groups; and optimizing manufacturing methods and services. All of that’s normally designed to chop prices, so it may spell vital layoffs in Japan and elsewhere.
Although the 2 corporations promote comparable autos like Nissan’s Rogue and the Honda CR-V, some synergy appears doable. Nissan sells giant pickup vans and SUVs within the US that Honda does not supply and in addition has extra expertise in EVs and plug-in electrical autos. On the opposite facet, Honda has comparatively steady financials whereas Nissan has been struggling out there, significantly at dwelling.
In fact, Nissan is already within the Renault-Nissan-Misubishi Alliance. Nissan and Renault maintain a 15 p.c voting stake within the different, and all three offered a mixed 10.6 million autos worldwide in 2017, greater than every other mild car producer on the time. The Alliance can also be one of many largest EV makers on this planet, with over 1 million items offered since 2009. If Nissan and Honda merged, it is not clear what would change into of the Alliance.
