Nissan seeks end to Renault control in French power struggle

PARIS (Reuters) – Nissan Motor has drawn up proposals to exit Renault control by purchasing a larger stake in its French parent, sources told Reuters, amid an escalating power struggle between Renault-Nissan alliance boss Carlos Ghosn and the French state, Renault's biggest shareholder.

In a three-page document passed to the French government, the Japanese carmaker calls for deep changes to the 16-year-old alliance, giving the companies equal weight in joint decisions and "better balanced" cross-shareholdings of 25-35 percent, government and company sources said.

Renault currently holds 43.4 percent of Nissan and the casting vote in their Dutchregistered Renault-Nissan BV management structure. Nissan in turn owns a non-voting 15 percent of Renault.

The Nissan demands are a response by 61-year-old Ghosn, CEO of both carmakers, to a surprise April move in which Economy Minister Emmanuel Macron raised France's Renault stake from 15 to 19.7 percent – informing Ghosn in a phone call only hours before the transaction took effect.

The stand-off marks a new low in Ghosn's relationship with the French government. It also threatens the future of an automotive pairing hailed as a rare success story in an industry whose recent past is littered with failed mergers.

France's stake increase, described as temporary, allowed the government to force a permanent doubling of its voting rights through the company's shareholder meeting by blocking Ghosn's proposed opt-out from a new law entering force next year.

A retaliatory plan to hand more power to Nissan – by restoring its voting rights in Renault to counter the government's increased clout – already has the Renault board's support. French state representatives abstained from the April 16 vote and have since contested its legitimacy, sources said.

But the new Nissan proposals, in a Sept. 3 note initialled by Ghosn's second-in-command Hiroto Saikawa, go much further.

Under French and Japanese law, the proposed 25-35 percent cross-shareholdings would allow Nissan to vote as Renault's biggest shareholder while depriving the French carmaker of any reciprocal say at Nissan meetings.

That amounts to a "reversal of the balance of power within the alliance to the detriment of Renault," according to a French government source.