French car maker Renault wants to create a common holding company with its Japanese partner Nissan that will own 100 percent of both auto manufacturers, the business daily Nikkei reported Friday.
Renault controls 43.4 percent of Nissan’s capital, with the Japanese manufacturer owning 15 percent of Renault, but without voting rights.
The new joint holding would be held “equally” by the two companies, with the French state owning around seven percent of the new company, Nikkei said.
The Wall Street Journal, citing sources close to the proposal, said that the shareholders of Renault and Nissan would each have “around 50 percent” of the new holding.
According to a source close to the matter, the idea is to build an “integrated industrial tool” to face the challenges confronting the auto industry in light of Nissan’s deteriorating performance.
“The formation of a holding company would rebalance the alliance between Renault and Nissan,” the source told AFP.
On the verge of bankruptcy in 1999 when it was rescued by Renault, Nissan’s performance has since become the stronger of the pair and its leaders have railed against French domination.
But in recent times the Japanese group has accumulated a series of bad results and legal problems.
On Wednesday it cut its annual profit estimates.
Carlos Ghosn, the former boss of Renault and Nissan, claimed in January he had been sidelined for his desire to create a holding company that would control Renault, Nissan and Mitsubishi Motors, the third partner in the alliance he built.
“We are not aware of the specifics of any exchanges and therefore can’t comment” a spokesperson for Nissan told AFP on Friday.
At an analysts meeting Friday, Renault’s financial director Clotilde Delbos said: “I will not be commenting on rumours in the papers.
“We have always said, and we will continue to say the same thing, that what we want is that the alliance is irreversible.”
This is about “making the alliance more effective in its daily operations and in its decision making process,” she added.
“A lot of the discussions are happening between separate partners to create this new project.
“For the moment that is all we can say.”
