Following the sale of Daimler shares by alliance partner Renault in March, Nissan has now also said it is selling a 1.5 percent stake in Daimler in an accelerated deal, according to foreign media reports.

(Image credit: Nissan)

Nissan will sell its shares to institutional investors at the end of June at a price of 69.85 euros per share, according to a statement issued on May 4. The company is expected to earn about 1.15 billion euros (about 1.38 billion U.S. dollars). The proceeds will be invested in areas such as electric vehicles.

Earlier this year, Daimler and Renault said the partnership was continuing, but people familiar with the matter said large-scale preliminary plans were never finalized and cross-shareholdings were no longer necessary. Daimler said it would not comment on third-party deals and its alliance partnership had not changed. Daimler has not announced any plans for a stake in Nissan and Renault.

　　

(Image source: www.alliance-2022.com)

The Nissan-Renault-Daimler business and capital partnership began in 2010 and was developed by Carlos Ghosn, who also leads Renault, and Dieter Zetsche, who was chairman and CEO of Daimler until 2019. At the time, Nissan and Renault acquired a combined 3.1% of Daimler; Daimler also held 3.1% each in Nissan and Renault. After the global economic crisis in 2008 overburdened car companies with excessive staff, equipment and debt, Ghosn believed that joining forces with peers was a way to deal with the crisis. Partners increase competitiveness with companies such as Toyota, Volkswagen and BMW.

　　

(Image credit: Daimler)

In a presentation with Zetsche at the 2015 Frankfurt International Motor Show, Ghosn boasted of the Renault-Nissan alliance’s 13 joint projects with Daimler, calling the three-company alliance “one of the most fruitful collaborations in the automotive industry.” . However, the effectiveness of these programs is open to question.

In 2017, the three automakers opened a joint plant in Mexico, one of their most famous joint ventures, producing compact cars from luxury brands Infiniti and Mercedes-Benz. But sluggish sales of small cars in the U.S. have kept the plant’s annual output well below its annual capacity of 230,000 vehicles. The plant produced 90,000 vehicles in 2019 and 106,000 last year, according to research firm MarkLines.

In 2014, Nissan started using Daimler engines in its flagship Model, the Skyline, but has since switched to Japanese-made engines. After Ghosn’s arrest and Zetsche’s ouster, the partnership between Nissan and Daimler stalled further. As the partnership loses momentum, cross-shareholding also becomes moot.

Source: Gasgoo

Author: Gu Jiaojiao