Nissan Motor Co shares yesterday rallied after a report said Honda Motor Co would be willing to reopen takeover talks if Nissan CEO Makoto Uchida steps down.
The Japanese auto giants last week said they had scrapped plans to join forces, which had been seen as a way to catch up with US titan Tesla Inc and Chinese firms in electric vehicles.
The merger talks apparently unraveled after Honda proposed to make its struggling rival a subsidiary instead of a plan announced in December last year to integrate under a new holding company.
Photo: Reuters
Uchida told reporters on Thursday last week that “we could not accept this proposal as we were not sure how much our autonomy would be kept and if Nissan’s potential would be maximized.”
However, Nissan shares yesterday rose almost 6 percent at one point after the Financial Times said Honda would be prepared to revive negotiations under a different Nissan boss. The gains were pared to close up 3.7 percent.
The Financial Times, citing people close to the matter, said 58-year-old Uchida had been a strong advocate for a deal.
However, his relations with Honda president Toshihiro Mibe had “deteriorated as Honda became frustrated with the speed of Nissan’s restructuring and the depth of its financial troubles,” the paper said.
Both Honda and Nissan declined to comment on the report.
Nissan announced thousands of job cuts last year after reporting a 93 percent plunge in first-half net profit, and on Thursday said it expected an annual loss of more than US$500 million.
The Financial Times said Uchida faced pressure to depart from board members over the failed talks, although he had indicated a desire to stay in the top job until next year.
Mibe on Thursday said that the automakers would continue to seek “synergy” through a strategic partnership announced in August that also included Nissan’s junior partner Mitsubishi Motors Corp.
Zhang Yazhou was sitting in the passenger seat of her Tesla Model 3 when she said she heard her father’s panicked voice: The brakes do not work. Approaching a red light, her father swerved around two cars before plowing into a sport utility vehicle and a sedan, and crashing into a large concrete barrier. Stunned, Zhang gazed at the deflating airbag in front of her. She could never have imagined what was to come: Tesla Inc sued her for defamation for complaining publicly about the vehicles brakes — and won. A Chinese court ordered Zhang to pay more than US$23,000 in
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) yesterday said that its investment plan in Arizona is going according to schedule, following a local media report claiming that the company is planning to break ground on its third wafer fab in the US in June. In a statement, TSMC said it does not comment on market speculation, but that its investments in Arizona are proceeding well. TSMC is investing more than US$65 billion in Arizona to build three advanced wafer fabs. The first one has started production using the 4-nanometer (nm) process, while the second one would start mass production using the
A TAIWAN DEAL: TSMC is in early talks to fully operate Intel’s US semiconductor factories in a deal first raised by Trump officials, but Intel’s interest is uncertain Broadcom Inc has had informal talks with its advisers about making a bid for Intel Corp’s chip-design and marketing business, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing people familiar with the matter. Nothing has been submitted to Intel and Broadcom could decide not to pursue a deal, according to the Journal. Bloomberg News earlier reported that Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) is in early talks for a controlling stake in Intel’s factories at the request of officials at US President Donald Trump’s administration, as the president looks to boost US manufacturing and maintain the country’s leadership in critical technologies. Trump officials raised the
From George Clooney to LeBron James, celebrities in the US have cashed in on tequila’s soaring popularity, but in Mexico, producers of the agave plant used to make the country’s most famous liquor are nursing a nasty hangover. Instead of bringing a long period of prosperity for farmers of the spiky succulent, the tequila boom has created a supply glut that sent agave prices slumping. Mexican tequila exports surged from 224 million liters in 2018 to a record 402 million last year, according to the Tequila Regulatory Council, which oversees qualification for the internationally recognized denomination of origin label. The US, Germany, Spain,
RSS