[lbo-talk] A Tale of Two Auto Mergers

Dennis Redmond dredmond at efn.org
Mon May 10 16:41:43 PDT 2004



> BW Online | April 29, 2004 | A Tale of Two Auto Mergers
> By Brian Bremner
>
> Not long ago, Mitsubishi Motors CEO Rolf Eckrodt and Nissan Motors
> CEO Carlos Ghosn were seen as the kind of managers who could bring
> radical change to Japan Inc. Their jobs: to fix Mitsubishi and Nissan,
> midsize car companies with faded brands, awesome debt loads, and
> uncertain futures.

Nissan was always a large, powerful independent carmaker. Mitsubishi was always a second-tier firm, like Isuzu or Suzuki. Nissan also had superb design and engineering skills; their main problem was that their assembly system wasn't as efficient as Toyota or Honda.

The keiretsu are restructuring and consolidating. But they're as mighty as they ever were.

-- DRR



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