wemay
Site Donor 2023
I have a strong feeling Nissan will be just fine. Good move.
Nissan - Honda merger off
- Thread starter addyguy
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You should buy some of their stock, it's not doing that well. It'll be a goldmine if you're right. They're back at 1998 levels, $5.50.
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The "Merger of Equals" will not have a sequel.
This is positive for everyone.
At least Nissan still has some fight, and hopefully the reforms will work.
The board shouldn't have ignored the poor leadership the company has had, which helped lead to this mess, but at least it has recognized the problem, and can hopefully put someone good in charge.
Honda didn't need a redux of the "English Patient" situation.
Whether one likes them or not, Nissan is a player, and keeping it on the field benefits the game, and the spectators. Visit an auto show, and it's striking how homogeneous the industry, and product has become.
More options, not fewer. A few mega OEMs regurgitating the same thing, only slightly tailored to fit each segment, makes for a deadly dull market.
This is positive for everyone.
At least Nissan still has some fight, and hopefully the reforms will work.
The board shouldn't have ignored the poor leadership the company has had, which helped lead to this mess, but at least it has recognized the problem, and can hopefully put someone good in charge.
Honda didn't need a redux of the "English Patient" situation.
Whether one likes them or not, Nissan is a player, and keeping it on the field benefits the game, and the spectators. Visit an auto show, and it's striking how homogeneous the industry, and product has become.
More options, not fewer. A few mega OEMs regurgitating the same thing, only slightly tailored to fit each segment, makes for a deadly dull market.
The Japanese govt is unlikely to let a company the size of Nissan fail without trying to give them life support.
None of us keyboard warriors here truly know what’s going on behind the curtains. IMO, it’s a good thing Nissan called this off. I can see Nissan having to accept Honda’s terms if both companies were competing in all the same market segments and Nissan was truly out of funds. Their latest products seem to show that whatever they’re doing (reorgs, putting the right folks in the right positions, etc.) is a concerted effort to get out of the Ghosn era mess and the associated decision to push crappy car fleet sales saddled with the Jatco CVTs.
I think a junior partner in an alliance would’ve been the way to go and allow both companies to compete in markets and segments they’re strong in.
I’m hoping Foxconn or another company will see the value in what Nissan’s attempting to do and give them a shot at success. Time will tell…
None of us keyboard warriors here truly know what’s going on behind the curtains. IMO, it’s a good thing Nissan called this off. I can see Nissan having to accept Honda’s terms if both companies were competing in all the same market segments and Nissan was truly out of funds. Their latest products seem to show that whatever they’re doing (reorgs, putting the right folks in the right positions, etc.) is a concerted effort to get out of the Ghosn era mess and the associated decision to push crappy car fleet sales saddled with the Jatco CVTs.
I think a junior partner in an alliance would’ve been the way to go and allow both companies to compete in markets and segments they’re strong in.
I’m hoping Foxconn or another company will see the value in what Nissan’s attempting to do and give them a shot at success. Time will tell…
Read a story today where one of the major sticking points in the merger talks was when Honda expected Nissan to ditch their hybrid tech. I suppose it makes sense for a joint company to standardize things like this, but Nissan isn't ready to abandon their own tech. Carlos Ghosn said that there would be issues like this. Too bad he blew himself up. He could put Nissan right again (my opinion).
https://www.motor1.com/news/750906/honda-wanted-nissan-abandon-hybrid/
https://www.motor1.com/news/750906/honda-wanted-nissan-abandon-hybrid/
Nissan struggles with out dated tech, a failing luxury brand, and more. They need help. If all they have is government protectionism, I don't see how that cures their problems.
Competition, poor hybrid and EV products, CVT reputation, etc are hardly small issues.
Competition, poor hybrid and EV products, CVT reputation, etc are hardly small issues.
That is exactly why people used to buy Nissan's. They were low tech appliances that were cheap and lasted forever.
They went off the rails when they started worrying about how big the touchscreen was and forgot to worry about how long the transmission would last.
I would argue that 2002 was before Nissan really went downhill. I don't think they started getting really bad until around 2006-2007. There was a time when Nissan put out quality products. Nissan's corporate alliance with Renault began in 1999 but the products engineered post-alliance didn't hit the market for quite a few years.
At this point, Nissan is a financing company that also happens to sell cars. Apparently that's a bad business model.
The Renault alliance didn't affect products sold in the US and Canada. I think the main problem with Nissan was poor product planning. They focused on the center of the bell curve, making uninspiring vehicles to drive, because most people were just looking for transportation. That may have been okay, but they also made a lot of fairly ugly vehicles, which didn't help. And of course, the CVT disaster hit. In present times, the product planners missed the hybrid train. And their attempt at building an interesting engine, the variable compression jobby, is pretty much a fail. Honestly, that's not like Nissan; they do have some good engineering depth, it's just being misdirected.
The elephant in the room is this.
About 21% of Nissan's sales is in China. For Honda - its actually about 31%. Expect those sales to approach zero in the near future. The CCP has decided they are going to own the car market.
Honda has about $145B in revenue on $69B in debt on 4M unit sales (plus other things)
Nissan has about $110B in revenue on $52B in debt on 3.4M unit sales.
The fact is that Honda wasn't going to save Nissan, and Nissan couldn't save Honda. They both need to scale back to about 2/3 their size. Nissan has a plan and is on its way. If they make it is another story, but Honda has not started.
About 21% of Nissan's sales is in China. For Honda - its actually about 31%. Expect those sales to approach zero in the near future. The CCP has decided they are going to own the car market.
Honda has about $145B in revenue on $69B in debt on 4M unit sales (plus other things)
Nissan has about $110B in revenue on $52B in debt on 3.4M unit sales.
The fact is that Honda wasn't going to save Nissan, and Nissan couldn't save Honda. They both need to scale back to about 2/3 their size. Nissan has a plan and is on its way. If they make it is another story, but Honda has not started.
Agree, China is the catalyst that is making so much happen. And is ain't just Honda Nissan...
A Honda Nissan merge had the opportunity to be stronger than just by themselves. I am not smart enough to know what Nissan brought... Trucks perhaps? Consolidation saves a lot of overhead and duplicate efforts. It allows for trimming the fat and focusing on strengths. If it is done right, and merges never are 100% right. Rip off the band-aid and go.
But it's moot at this point. That's business. Everything changes.
Could happen. Or, he gets forced out. Seems drastic.
Given the Nissan Board voted to cancel the talks, I call this fake news.
https://www.motor1.com/news/751039/honda-nissan-merger-ceo-steps-down/
Other outlets now stating what @dkryan mentioned above with the WSJ article
Still, the whole Honda trying to pressure Nissan into becoming a subsidiary seems like a poor play by a company that isn’t doing that much better with no turn around plans for China market or EVs.
Other outlets now stating what @dkryan mentioned above with the WSJ article
Still, the whole Honda trying to pressure Nissan into becoming a subsidiary seems like a poor play by a company that isn’t doing that much better with no turn around plans for China market or EVs.
Could be a neogtiation tactic? Who the heck knows?
2003 was the Maxima's apex, IMO. Some will argue that the last 3.0 Maxima was the Apex. It was downhill from there for their entire car line. Again, in my opinion. Elimination of the manual transmission, combined with replacement of the conventional auto with a CVT was the knife in the carotid for them.
Simply because Nissan ended the merger talks doesn’t mean Honda wants the current CEO to remain.
And in a world where “journalism“ is a rarity nowadays, I would hardly call a WSJ article “fake news.”
citing “people with knowledge of the deliberations,”
I have worked with the Japanese. No way that an executive with enough status to be in the negotiations would leak this to the press. At best its a staffer there to fill water glasses.
Possibly the CEO goes, but I doubt it has anything to do with Honda. At the end of the day he was likely just negotiating how the board told him to - because he has no say anyway. Its up to the board and the shareholders. I doubt the shareholders want a fire sale to Honda - which is what Honda wants.
Nissan will find other investors. The whole reason is Renault wants to sell there 34% stake. Why - likely because the entire industry is doing the counterclockwise rotation as the Chinese EV companies absorb the entire market in China (30%) and are making a pretty good entrance into Europe. The market for all the legacy companies is getting a whole lot smaller.
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