General Motor’s top management will explore a potentially far-reaching global alliance between Detroit-based General Motors, Japan’s Nissan, and France’s Renault. The initiative came amidst pressure from GM’s largest stockholder, Kirk Kerkorian.
“GM’s board of directors is authorizing management to consider [alliance] ideas with the other two companies – and to weigh the potential benefits of such an alliance,” said GM board member George Fisher.
GM chairman Rick Wagoner will lead the company’s effort to conduct exploratory talks with the managements of Renault and Nissan.
“We have a lot of experience with different types of alliances and some have provided significant benefits to our competitive position and financial strength,” he said. “We’ll enter into discussions with the managements of Renault and Nissan with an open mind: we’re eager to hear their ideas of how an alliance between our companies might work to our mutual benefit.”
Both Wagoner and Fisher stressed that it’s crucial for GM to stay focused on implementing its North American turnaround strategy.
“We announced this strategy about one year ago and have made tremendous progress in implementing all the key initiatives,” Wagoner stated. “But there’s plenty more work to do to return our North American operations to sustained profitability. We remain focused on achieving this as quickly as possible.”
