Japanese car companies Nissan, Honda and Mitsubishi negotiate their merger

The automobile industry has been built on mergers and the next one would be brewing in Japan. There, the automobile giants Nissan, Honda and Mitsubishi Motors Corporation have begun dialogue that could result in a corporate operation that encompasses the three companies, according to information published by the Nikkei diary.

The operation would involve the creation of a holding company that would serve as an umbrella for the brands. At the moment there is nothing concrete, according to the aforementioned information, and the companies do not take anything for granted. They only confirm that they are talking.

“Nissan, Honda and Mitsubishi are considering various possibilities for future collaboration,” each acknowledges in an identical statementbut they also emphasize that “no decision has been made” and that they will be formally informed “at the appropriate time.”

If the dialogue takes place, they would create a company valued at nearly 54 billion dollars (more than 51 billion euros) and with the capacity to manufacture around 7.4 million cars each year, according to estimates published by Reuters. It would be the fourth largest car manufacturer in the world, behind the also Japanese Toyota, the German Volkswagen and the Korean Hyundai.

Japanese car companies are trying to gain dimension in a sector that faces growing competition from Chinese companies, which have been able to sell electric vehicles much cheaper than their rivals, which has upset more traditional manufacturers.

In this case, negotiations would have accelerated after the Taiwanese giant Foxconn (which manufactures iPhones for Apple) was also interested in buying a stake in Nissan, as noted by both Nikkei and Bloomberg. The derivative, that Nissan shares have skyrocketed by 24%, the biggest increase in its history.

This operation would have more derivatives because the French automobile group Renault is a reference shareholder of Nissanalthough it has been reducing its participation in recent years – around 15% –, but without leaving the shareholding to take advantage of synergies in production. The last major merger, until now, was that of Stellantis, which united European and American brands, such as Fiat, Peugeot, Citroën, Opel or Jeep.