This is the question that still obsesses some of the Japanese economic elites and the old guard at Nissan. It was asked repeatedly, this Monday, to Jean-Dominique Senard, the president of Renault, and to Luca de Meo, its managing director, on the move for several days in Yokohama, at the headquarters of their Japanese partner. How to rethink the balance of capitalistic forces within an alliance where Renault, valued today at 7 billion euros and producing 2.7 million cars a year, owns 43% of a Nissan weighing twice that and selling 4 million vehicles?
To all, the two Frenchmen repeated that this thorny file would not be opened until the partners of the alliance, mistreated on the Paris and Tokyo Stock Exchanges, had not regained their full value. “That’s absolutely not the point. We need completely different circumstances, especially in terms of the valuations of our shares, before this question becomes relevant”, insisted Jean-Dominique Senard.