Nissan ready to invest 650 million euros in Ampere, the electric subsidiary of Renault

Nissan will invest around 100 billion yen (647 million euros at the current price) in Ampere, the future electric subsidiary of its ally Renault to be listed on the stock market in early 2024, according to information from the Japanese daily Yomiuri on Friday. This investment is one of the centerpieces of the new framework agreement between Renault and Nissan announced last February, but the finalization of which dragged on, due to differences at the top of the Japanese group, which would now be resolved.

The finalization of this agreement should be officially announced next week, according to several sources from the two manufacturers interviewed by AFP on Thursday. “Nissan and Renault are engaged in constructive and ongoing negotiations. We will make a statement in due course when the agreements are concluded,” Nissan reacted on Friday in a brief statement published on its site.

According to the Yomiuri, Nissan and Renault have estimated Ampere's enterprise value at between 8 and 10 billion euros. Nissan's share should thus be significantly less than 10% of Ampere's capital, whereas in February the Japanese group said it was ready to acquire up to 15% of the shares. Also according to the Yomiuri, Nissan will have a representative in the Ampere management committee and will also make technologies available to this new company, while applying certain restrictions on its patents, which was one of the major concerns of the Japanese group. .

The new Renault-Nissan agreement presented in February provides for new joint operational projects in India and Latin America, as well as in the long term a rebalancing of equal shares of cross-shareholdings between the two manufacturers, at 15% each and as many voting rights. .

Renault currently owns 43.4% of Nissan, while it only owns 15% of the French group and no voting rights. The imbalance of this union has been a recurring source of tension in the past, which reached its climax with the spectacular ousting of the big boss of the alliance Carlos Ghosn at the end of 2018, arrested in Japan for alleged financial embezzlement and who fled a year later in Lebanon.