Renault

The commercial results of the two French carmakers were published last week and, behind the facade homology represented by the similarity of volumes (3.75 million for Renault and 3.48 million for PSA) and their decline (-3.4% for Renault and -10% for PSA), the figures underline the significant differences between the two manufacturers.

 

Thus, seen from France, one would get the impression that PSA is outperforming Renault. In most segments except B, Renault products are barely outperforming Peugeot products and the latter obviously give PSA a "pricing power" that Renault is struggling to conquer. The financial results corresponding to the commercial results published last week are likely to confirm this in February.

 

Last Friday Autoactu released two articles that unintentionally referred to each other.

 

One, signed by Laurent Bodin, dealt with the fate of PSA's Mulhouse assembly plant, which saw the production of the new 2008 model leave for Spain under the now well-known doctrine that French sites should not assemble vehicles from segments A and B, even if they are SUVs.
The other, signed by Bertrand Rakoto, analysed the automobile component of the new free trade agreement between the United States, Canada and Mexico and the constraints it imposes on manufacturers to limit competition between high-wage and low-wage countries and relocation to Mexico.

Alors que l’industrie automobile française va, ce lundi, tenter de comprendre ce qui l’attend et tenter de faire pression pour que tous les soutiens lui soient apportés, les nouvelles de nos voisins allemands convergent pour indiquer que les années à venir vont être difficiles pour les constructeurs comme pour les équipementiers.

 

Après que Audi ait annoncé  en début de semaine dernière une réduction d’effectifs de 9500 personnes d’ici à 2025, c’est Daimler qui annonçait en fin de semaine la suppression de 10 000 emplois d’ici à 2022. Continental avait, il y a quelques semaines, annoncé de même un plan de réduction de ses effectifs de 20 000 (sur un total de 244 000 personnes) dont 7000 en Allemagne. "Au total, indique RFI, ces derniers mois les principaux constructeurs et équipementiers automobiles ont programmé près de 30 000 suppressions d'emplois" .

 

This November, we receive the financial results of Japanese automakers for the first half of their fiscal year, which ends at the end of March. Awaiting of Nissan, which will only be made public this week, we can look at those of Toyota and Honda, which already reveal the unequal exposure of Japanese carmakers to the decline in global demand that is now taking shape.

 

From this point of view, Toyota impresses by posting increasing volumes, sales and results.
Toyota sold 4.64 million vehicles from April to September, 220,000 more than last year. Its turnover increased by 600 billion yen (almost 5 billion euros), i.e. by 4%, and its operating income by 140 billion yen (1.16 billion euros, +11%). Its operating margin was 8.6% of turnover for the first half of the previous year, compared to 9.2% for the first six months of 2020.

 

A mesure que se précisent les termes exacts du deal en cours de négociation et les réactions des marchés, les contours de ce 50-50 paraissent un peu moins "paritaires". En effet, les financiers calculent sur la base des valorisations respectives des deux groupes avant l’annonce du projet et des opérations qui vont être conduites avant le deal que l’on serait plutôt à 60-40 au profit de PSA et que PSA consent donc pour que le deal se fasse à un important sacrifice.

En effet, à la clôture de mercredi soir, la capitalisation de PSA s'élevait à 23,19 milliards d'euros quand celle de FCA s'établissait à 18,22 milliards d'euros. On a appris que, avant la réalisation de l’opération, FCA distribuerait à ses actionnaires un dividende exceptionnel de 5,5 milliards d’euros, ainsi que sa participation dans Comau estimée à 250 millions d'euros.

As we are informed in late October of the financial results for the third quarter of 2019 of the automotive groups, a rather difficult year 2019 is looming for most manufacturers and everything suggests that things will not improve in 2020: a large majority of markets are on a downward trend and it is imperative to continue investing.

 

Investing for a carmaker means both feeding the "business as usual" by regularly renewing the products. It also means, of course, launching or developing in new fields by setting up in countries where it was not present, or not enough, by creating new brands or by developing R&D skills that were not its own until then.
In all these cases, there is a need to spend now and, in most cases, several years in a row, expecting future revenues that may or may not become a reality.

As if to mark his difference and/or to highlight what might have opposed her to Thierry Bolloré (Renault's former CEO, recently laid off), Clotilde Delbos (appointed to replace him) began her interim period at the head office of the Renault group with a "profit warning": no, the return to positive cash flow in the second half of the year will not offset the €700 million negative cash flow of the first half; no, revenue will not be constant but will fall by 3 to 4% and the operating margin will be 5% rather than 6% as announced in July; no, the 2022 plan will not be implemented and it is urgent to redefine it so that everyone knows where he is going.

 

She did not just talk to the analysts. She also spoke on Tuesday in a video for employees to tell them that the "Drive the Future" plan had to be taken up again because the market has changed over the past two years and that "unfortunately, the situation did not improve during the summer" and requires that the strategy be adjusted to "get Renault back on track".

The show goes on and the last episode was the brutal eviction of Thierry Bolloré (Renault's CEO) on Friday.

 

This is willingly commented on as the counterpart to Saikawa's which would have been desired by the Nissans and - as some presume - agreed by Jean-Dominique Senard (Renault's Chairman) that the trio of leadership candidates should be put in the order he wanted to see prevail.
The government and the agency of state shareholdings ("APE3: Agence des Participations de l'Etat) which, after having wished for the Renault-Nissan merger and having favourably considered the Renault-FCA operation, seem to have finally understood since the beginning of June that the relaunch of the Alliance should be the priority given to J.-D. Senard would have validated the option. The undertaking would therefore mainly be a process of "de-ghosnisation" of the top management of the two companies necessary for a new start.

 

If this interpretation contains some truth, it is probably a little short, however.

Toyota a annoncé le 28 août qu’elle allait recruter 500 personnes sur son site d’Onnaing. Ces nouvelles recrues viendront porter les effectifs à 4 500 employés et correspondent à l’investissement de 300 millions d’euros annoncé début 2018 pour porter les capacités de production du site à 300 000 véhicules par an. La direction indique que les effectifs sont passés de 2 938 CDI en janvier 2018 à 3 150 aujourd’hui, avec un objectif à 3 600 d’ici fin 2020.