Renault Chairman Jean-Dominique Senard is determined to get the automaker’s alliance with Nissan Motors back on track next year, he stated on Tuesday, adding other matters such as a potential tie-up with Fiat Chrysler were less of a priority.
The Renault-Nissan partnership was rocked by previous alliance boss Carlos Ghosn’s arrest in Tokyo during last year on financial misconduct charges, which he rejects.
The two firms are still attempting to fix relations, including through latest management overhauls, to focus again on combined attempts to slash costs and invest in new technologies – among the pressing issues thrown into sharp relief by a Renault profit warning last week.
“My obsession is for the alliance to take off in 2020,” Senard informed France Inter radio.
“If, by 2020, we don’t happen to start extracting … all the potential of this alliance, I’ll consider it to be a failure, on a personal level and by our teams.”
Senard did not give additional details.
But he stated that other matters, such as attempting to revive merger discussions with Fiat Chrysler, that were abandoned in June, were secondary to the industrial projects Renault and Nissan needed to work on.
“Today, it’s not on the table,” Senard stated on Fiat deal.
He added decreasing Renault’s 43.3% stake in Nissan, which could help improve relations, was also not the biggest concern of his list.
“Nothing can ever be excluded, (but) this is not what we’re focused on,” Senard stated.
Previously this month, the automaker ousted CEO Thierry Bollore, a former Ghosn protegee known for having a strained relationship with Nissan, as it attempts to wipe the slate clean with its Japanese partner.
“I discovered an alliance in worse shape than I’d imagined … this takes time to mend,” Senard stated.
Renault, which informed last week it was evalutating some mid-term targets, is due to release more information about its third quarter performance on October 25.
