Business

Renault to cooperate with Daimler
by Zuzana Zelenakova

French automaker Renault, which due to its alliance with Nissan is currently the world´s number four in car manufacturing, is about to seal the deal with Mercedes-Benz manufacturer Daimler AG. Renault is expected to get about 2 billion euros in additional profits over the next five years due to the upcoming partnership. "It's about €400 million in additional profit every year," said Renault CEO Carlos Ghosn. Renault and Nissan Motors Co. which forms an alliance back in 1999, will join forces with the German automaker in order to develop a new generation of small cars, share each other´s know-how and work together on small commercial vans. According to the ! deal Renault and Nissan get about 3.1 percent of the Daimler stock and the German manufacturer will acquire the same amount in the two other companies. "The reason for the cross-shareholdings is to drive and encourage deeper collaboration, not just one-off projects," said Carlos Ghosn, who serves as CEO of both Renault and Nissan. It is small size exchange compared to the Renault-Nissan alliance, as Renault has 44.4 percent of stock in the Japan automaker, while Nissan has 15 percent stake in Renault. Global car industry is still struggling in the aftermath of the financial crisis and is joining forces mostly in order to reduce costs. According to the experts, by alliance with Renault, Daimler could save about 600 million euros in the development sector. Under the partnership announced Wednesday, the companies will work on developing new Smart and Twingo versions as well as new gas and diesel engines for these cars. The cooperation projects will be conducted by both Carlos ! Ghosn and Daimler CEO Dieter Zetsche. "I can confirm that we ! approve of this partnership and that our representative will defend the state's industrial strategy," said French Industry Minister Estrosi. French state has 15 percent stake in Renault.

related story (sgx16938): http://www.france24.com/en/20100406-renault-france-discuss-a...

by Zuzana Zelenakova for Cantell TV (http://cantell.tv)

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posted by Blog TechSource @ 3:25 PM