The wedding of the century between FCA and Renault, which would give birth to the first automotive group, jumped into the night. FCA, faced with the delays of the French house, withdrew the merger proposal.
The French state, which is a major shareholder of the French car manufacturer with 15% and which in recent days had requested that the headquarters of the new group be in Paris and also an extra dividend and the entry of a representative on the board of directors, he suggested to the Renault board, who experienced a dramatic session of more than six hours yesterday, to take time and to wait to give the green light to the marriage with FCA.
It was at that point that the president of FCA, John Elkann met the board of directors overnight and formally withdrew the proposal. "There are currently no political conditions in France – says an FCA press release – for such a merger to proceed successfully”. In the same hours also the Japanese of the Nissan who were evaluating the opportunity to enter the FCA-Renault mega-deal accentuated their perplexities, but it was Macron's half no that precipitated the situation.
It is said that last night's breakup is irreparable and the skilful use of adverbs in the FCA press release (“currently” the deal is impossible) does not exclude new twists and does not exclude the possibility of re-linking the negotiations. But for now it's a break and the protagonists – starting with France – will have to explain what went wrong and why they take responsibility for screwing up a marriage that would have given two major European car manufacturers world leadership.
