The Fiat Chrysler/Renault deal
So after all the hype and initial cautious approval from France and Italy it seems that the proposed merger between Fiat Chrysler and Renault is dead.
The French government wanted the deal to get support from Nissan and because it didn’t get it, it rejected the merger.
The deal would have made the group the world’s third largest car manufacturer behind VW and Toyota, but its abandonment means that it’ll be back to the drawing board for all concerned as they all face falling car sales and higher costs resulting from tightening regulation and increased R&D spend for electric vehicles.
Nissan is hardly in a position of strength itself, so let’s hope that its refusal to support the deal was the right one and won’t contribute to its terminal decline.
This move could yet prove to be ironic because if Fiat Chrysler can’t merge with other manufacturers and has rising costs, it will have to make big cuts to survive – cuts that apparently wouldn’t have been made had the merger gone ahead.
Arcadia’s day of judgement
The other thing I wanted to highlight today was the postponement of the creditor vote on Arcadia’s CVAs.
Basically, the vote was postponed until next Wednesday because it wasn’t looking like the creditors would play ball.
Arcadia chief Philip Green needs at least 75% approval from creditors for ALL SEVEN of his proposed CVAs for Arcadia to survive, so you can see why he wanted more time to talk the doubters around.
If Big Phil doesn’t get his way for CVAs, we could see a massive Topshop, Topman, Miss Selfridge, Evans, Wallis and Dorothy Perkins-shaped hole on the high street so there is a LOT riding on this.