It will likely come as no surprise that the Honda-Nissan merger talks didn’t go as smoothly as the two automakers had hoped. After weeks of negotiations, the pair decided to walk away from the merger discussions, as Honda’s conditions for the deal were too much for Nissan to swallow.
Describing the situation, Honda CEO Toshihiro Mibe said his company’s final proposal involved it taking full control of Nissan, noting that it would have made management moves easier and faster. That was too much for Nissan to handle, but Mibe said Honda knew that before going in with the last-ditch offer.
“We anticipated that our proposal of share exchanges would be quite a difficult decision for Nissan, and we considered a possibility that the agreement might be withdrawn.” Despite those concerns, Mibe said the alternative could create problems for both automakers: “However, the far greater concern could be that the integration would progress so slowly that we would fall into a more serious situation in the future.”
Nissan’s CEO confirmed the decision, saying, “We were not confident that our autonomy would be preserved or that Nissan’s potential would truly be maximized. I had doubts whether it would be successful.” The two companies said they would continue to work together moving forward, which could yield shared vehicles such as Honda trucks, but the deal to create the world’s third-largest automaker is officially dead.
[Images: Nissan, Honda]
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