PSA

 

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.

While the French automotive industry is going, this Monday, to try to understand what awaits it and try to put pressure to receive all the support it needs, news from our German neighbours converge to indicate that the coming years will be difficult for both automakers and equipment manufacturers.

 

 After Audi announced early last week that it would reduce its workforce by 9,500 by 2025, Daimler announced on the weekend that it would cut 10,000 jobs by 2022. A few weeks ago, Continental also announced a plan to reduce its workforce by 20,000 (out of a total of 244,000 people), including 7,000 in Germany. "In total," says RFI, "in recent months, the main car manufacturers and equipment manufacturers have planned nearly 30,000 job cuts.

 

En ce mois de novembre, l’offensive électrique de Volkswagen se traduit par une impressionnante série d’annonces et de déclarations des dirigeants du groupe qui semblent vouloir convaincre chacun que l’inéluctable marche vers le véhicule électrique à batterie est en cours et que c’est Volkswagen qui, parmi tous les constructeurs, est le plus prêt à conduire cette mutation.

 

Il y a sans doute là une dimension "méthode Coué" qui conduit les dirigeants effrayés par les risques qu’ils prennent à vouloir se convaincre, convaincre leurs équipes et convaincre les clientèles que l’électrique à batterie est le bon choix.
Il y a surtout d’évidence une volonté très politique d’imposer un standard mondial et de fabriquer, pour l’industrie automobile, des règles du jeu concurrentiel qui seront d’autant plus facile à respecter pour Volkswagen qu’elles auront été en large partie conçues autour de ses convictions et propositions.

 

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.

Comme pour marquer sa différence et/ou pour souligner ce qui avait pu l’opposer à Thierry Bolloré, Clotilde Delbos a entamé son intérim à la direction générale du groupe Renault par un "profit warning" : non, le retour à un cash flow positif au second semestre ne permettra pas de compenser le cash flow négatif de 700 millions d’euros du premier; non, le chiffre d’affaires ne sera pas constant mais baissera de 3 à 4% de même que la marge opérationnelle sera plutôt de 5% que de 6% comme annoncé en juillet ; non, le plan 2022 ne vas pas être tenu et il est urgent de le redéfinir pour que chacun sache où il va.

 

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.