Carmakers in equity talks

飞雪寒冰

Daimler and Renault are discussing acquiring mutual equity stakes as part of a possible alliance that would go beyond their current talks on small cars, two people briefed on the matter told the Financial Times.

If the talks are successful, the German and French carmakers would take stakes in each other as part of “a longer-term framework for cooperation”, according to one of the people.

Discussions have been long- running, and are still ongoing, these people said. Renault and Daimler declined to comment.

One of the people familiar with the talks said that the stakes to be bought or swapped were likely to be smaller than 10 per cent.

飞雪寒冰

Daimler and Renault said in December that they were discussing possible partnership on small and compact vehicles.

Both companies, like all automakers, are in constant talks with their competitors about pooling costs and building scale for costly new technologies and cars. These have intensified during the industry's current deep recession.

“We're talking to many people in the industry,” Carlos Ghosn, Renault and Nissan's chief executive, said in Geneva earlier this month. “The name of the game is scale and co- investments and sharing technologies.”

飞雪寒冰

Renault, which is already in an 11-year-old cross-shareholding alliance with Japan's Nissan, has long spoken of adding a third partner.

Daimler, which has a history of unhappy tie-ups with other carmakers, including Mitsubishi, Hyundai and Chrysler, is said to be cooler on the idea of taking an equity stake in Renault. However, it urgently needs a partner for small cars, where it struggles to be profitable because of small scale and high variable costs.