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By Agencies
Japan’s Nissan has called off merger talks with rival Honda, according to reports abandoning a tie-up that would have created the world’s no.3 automaker and raising questions about its ability to ride out a crisis on its own.
Shares in Nissan slid more than 4% before trade was suspended by the Tokyo Stock Exchange following the report. Shares of Honda, which were still trading, were up more than 8% in a sign of apparent investor relief about the deal being scrapped.
A Honda spokesperson said the company had not heard anything from Nissan about a decision to withdraw from their memorandum of understanding to work on a tie-up.
Reuters earlier reported that Nissan could call off the talks and that the board was due to meet to decide a course of action.
Honda, Japan’s second-largest car maker, and Nissan, its third-largest, last year said they were in discussions to merge and create the world’s third-largest automaker by sales, bulking up in an industry that faces a vast threat from China’s BYD and other electric vehicle entrants.
But the talks have been complicated by growing differences on both sides, according to two people familiar with the matter, both of whom declined to be identified because they were not authorized to speak to the media.
Honda had sounded Nissan out about becoming a subsidiary, one of the people said, adding that such an arrangement was a departure from the spirit of discussions originally framed as a merger of equals.
Source: https://www.reuters.com/markets/deals/nissan-honda-may-call-off-merger-talks-asahi-says-2025-02-04/