Nissan Motor President and CEO Makoto Uchida and Honda Motor President and CEO Toshihiro Mibe attend their joint press conference in Tokyo, Japan, March 15, 2024.
Kyodo |. Via Reuters
DETROIT – Japanese automakers Nissan engine And Honda engines They reportedly plan to begin merger negotiations to better compete in the rapidly changing global auto industry, the Nikkei newspaper reported on Tuesday.
According to the report, Honda and Nissan are considering operating under a holding company and will sign a letter of intent soon. They also want to eventually bring Mitsubishi Motors, in which Nissan is the main shareholder with a 24% stake, under the holding company.
According to Nikkei, the combined Nissan-Honda-Mitsubishi company would be equivalent to more than 8 million vehicle sales annually. This would place the company among the largest automakers in the world, but still lag behind other Japanese automakers Toyota engineat 11.2 million in 2023, as well as German automakers Volkswagenwhich reported sales of 9.2 million vehicles last year.
In similar statements, Honda and Nissan neither confirmed nor denied the report: “The reported content was not published by our company,” Honda said. “As announced in March this year, Honda and Nissan are exploring various opportunities for future collaboration, leveraging each other's strengths. We will communicate any updates to our stakeholders in due course.”
The merger report follows the two Japanese automakers entering into a strategic partnership for shared automotive components and software earlier this year.
Such a merger would be the largest merger in the automotive industry since the merger of Fiat Chrysler and France-based PSA Groupe Stellar in January 2021.
Automotive consultants and other experts have recently called for an increase in mergers and acquisitions to share costs and better compete against fast-growing Chinese automakers as well as the U.S. leader in all-electric vehicles Tesla.
U.S.-traded Honda shares closed up about 1% on Tuesday. Over the counter Nissan shareswhich is in the midst of a restructuring, rose more than 11%.
Comments are closed.