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Nissan has begun searching for a strategic partner in the tech industry after its chief executive Makoto Uchida told his Honda counterpart that he was ending merger talks to create the world’s fourth-largest carmaker.
The search for new partners would be broad and outside the automotive industry, according to two people with direct knowledge of the matter.
Some board members are also open to considering a partnership with Taiwanese iPhone contract manufacturer Foxconn. The Apple supplier approached alliance partner Renault about acquiring part of its stake in Nissan late last year, triggering the frantic but fleeting round of merger negotiations with Honda.
Uchida met Honda chief Toshihiro Mibe on Thursday morning to inform him of the board’s intention to disband talks announced in December to combine as a company with a market capitalisation of about $58bn, according to people familiar with the matter.
The talks fell apart after Honda demanded at the weekend that Nissan accept a new offer to become a fully owned subsidiary, deviating from the initially agreed structure of a joint holding company.
On Wednesday, Nissan’s board meeting decided it would quit the merger talks since Honda had told them the new offer was “take it or leave it”, which they could not accept for fear of losing decision-making power and their brand being weakened under Honda management.
Nissan and Honda declined to comment. The two companies are set to report earnings next Thursday, when they are expected to announce publicly that the talks have terminated and explain why.
After launching formal talks with Honda, the discussions soon descended into an embittered fight, with Honda accusing Nissan of moving too slowly on its restructuring plan and Nissan claiming Honda’s new offer blindsided it.
Analysts were sceptical of the union from the start because of the gulf in their corporate cultures — Nissan proud of its engineering talent and Honda with a long record of going it alone.
France’s Renault had been offloading its 36 per cent shareholding in Nissan following a restructuring of their 25-year alliance in 2023.
The collapse of the takeover talks leaves the door open for Foxconn to reignite its ambitions to take Renault’s stake in Nissan as a platform to expand its electric vehicle unit.
Jun Seki, chief strategy officer for Foxconn’s EV division, knows Nissan well after formerly serving as its number-three executive until the end of 2019.
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