If there is anyone out there manning the gatehouse at GM, could they just let us know if they sign in a man called Carlos Ghosn?
Remember that the head of the Nissan Renault alliance tried to pull a stroke a few years back which involved absorbing the American dinosaur into what might have been RennissGM. The synergies would have been extraordinary. The global network would have been second to none. But GM was still the dinosaur that stalked the earth back then, still pursuing its blinkered vision of ceaseless acquisition which only ground to a halt when Fiat bit back.
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Rick Wagoner who was the top man then has been gone for a year and his CFO Fritz Henderson who took over is now also history. In charge in their places are Ed Whitacre from Ma Bell and Chris Liddle from Microsoft.
Absolutely no doubt that these two men have global vision – the volte face on the sale of Opel is proof of that. What they will learn when they look at the file is that it was GM that pulled the plug on talks, not Ghosn. And since then of course GM has completely lost its misplaced self-confidence and is only too well aware that it is still desperately uncompetitive and with a home market that will crater.
Down the road meanwhile is its own bete noire of Fiat trying its damnedest to pump up Chrysler. Not yet is that alliance the perfect industrial model for the new age but there is still a 50:50 chance that it will be.
As for Renault Nissan itself – good news and bad news. Both were on public display in Paris this week. The financial journalists were surrounded by the hot air of the financial results for 2009. The product journalists were in the Paris suburbs inside an antique aerospace wind-tunnel. Thought that would surprise you.
It was the imaginative venue for the unveiling of the Nissan Juke [see the 30-sec video clip below – ed] which in appearance could have been born from the illicit liaison of a Mini Countryman and the Nissan Qashqai. Some of the finest minds in the business have tried to craft the perfect chuckle from the twin opportunities of Jukebox and Joke but there really should be some consideration given to ennoblement as the car is to be built at Britain’s biggest car factory in Washington, Sunderland. The Juke of Washington has a noble feel to it.
It could be another winner. It has good looks and good performance figures. Price will be in the mid-teens. What was quite unusual was that it is not due for sale until September. Early warning of seven months is a first. They were not saying why this decision was taken, but the guess is that feedback on the quirky looks will be welcome before they commit, and the car is a confidence-builder for the business as a whole and its retail networks.
The bad news was in Renault’s financials. Revenues down 11%, no shift in world market share, net loss of €3bn. All of that was expected and will be brushed aside as a consequence of recession. But its competitive position should have improved because it is at the rich point of its model cycle, it did well from scrappage, synergy benefits of the alliance should be kicking in. Deep in the detail is the rather worrying realisation that capex is hovering only just above depreciation.
Ghosn sees that to get ahead, he has to wring more from the alliance. That is his number one competitive advantage. We know that because he has just set up a new alliance headquarters in Amsterdam with nine fine minds charged with finding all the wastage and monetising it.
If you add up all the volume of Renault, Dacia, Nissan, Infiniti, Lada and Samsung you get six million which is spot on the GM number. These two groups are equals. If you told the nine fine minds in Amsterdam that they could have a shot at tugging synergies and savings out of GM as well, they would get nothing done in the first week. They’d still be partying.
Come to think, we can stand down the gatekeeper in Detroit and must alert the receptionist in Amsterdam. It is GM that should be the supplicant not Renniss.
If anybody checks in a Mr Whitacre and a Mr Liddle, could you call?
Rob Golding
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