Renault-Nissan still seeking US alliance

Renault-Nissan will stick to its existing strategy after tie-up talks with General Motors ended and saw no market other than North America for a possible alliance, the group's head Carlos Ghosn told Reuters. Ghosn, head of both Renault SA and Japan's Nissan Motor, said that he had no plans to talk to the chairman of Ford Motor, Bill Ford Jr, about a possible alliance and had not talked to him since the breakdown of talks with GM.

"For the moment I'm not looking for anything. We have clear strategies at Nissan and Renault. We are going to pursue this strategy, we're going to make sure that we are delivering the commitments," Ghosn said. After the breakdown in talks with GM there has been speculation over a potential alliance with Ford, where Bill Ford Jr. has acknowledged he had tried to hire Ghosn, who is highly regarded for his success in turning around Nissan. Earlier Ghosn told reporters that the group would not take the initiative in discussions over an alliance with US firms. "I want to make it very clear we are not taking any initiative", he said, referring to merger talks.

The Franco-Japanese auto group and GM broke off talks last week over a GM demand for compensation for joining an alliance, although Nissan said it was still interested in a US partner. The discussions were brokered by billionaire investor Kirk Kerkorian, who holds a 9.9 percent stake in GM and whose representative, Jerry York, joined the GM board in February but left after the talks broke down.

Motivating Renault/Nissan is the long-term threat posed by Toyota Motor, which plans to boost its global vehicle sales to 9.8 million in 2008, setting it on course to overtake GM as the world's biggest auto maker. But it is unclear if Ford would be interested in an alliance. Last month, Ford said it would slash $5 billion (Rs 23,000 crore) in costs and cut one-third of its workforce, while warning that its auto business might not make a profit for the next three years.

Although there have been media reports that Bill Ford Jr. approached Ghosn in August to talk about possible cooperation, Ford last month named Alan Mulally, a former Boeing Co. executive, as its new CEO. Ghosn said he saw no impact from lower gasoline prices on its key non-truck models in the United States, such as the Altima, Sentra and Infiniti G35, which combined account for about two-thirds of Nissan's US sales.