Nissan, no one is surprised by the deficit of 750 billion yen.

“Oh, I guess so.” It was when I realized that I was convinced. For more than 30 years, every time Nissan Motors recorded a deficit in its financial results, it was “again”. I felt a little sad, but this time I was no longer surprised.

I’m surprised that I’m not surprised

I don’t even criticize it as an annual event, but I’m disgusted with myself for tracing the fading memory, saying, “When was Nissan, which made a lot of money?”

Looking back, Nissan’s financial deterioration accelerated from around 1990, and when estimated, the amount swelled to about 3 trillion yen. I formed an interview team at the editorial office of the newspaper I worked for and prepared for the bankruptcy of the management. 35 years after that. It’s not ironic, but I’m impressed that it survived well.

Nissan is expected to fall into a loss of up to 750 billion yen in the fiscal year ending March 25. The size of the final deficit is the largest ever, exceeding the 684.3 billion yen in the fiscal year ending March 1999, when Nissan was forced to make a capital alliance with Renault.

I have witnessed the details leading to the capital alliance with Renault from the beginning, but at that time, both Nissan and Renault were in a mess. It is a rescue drama that the Japanese and French governments hastly compromised to avoid a blow to their own economy. In other words, rather than for future management restructuring, it is a temporary weak alliance. It can be said that it is a product of compromise.

The V-shaped recovery in the Gone era is a fit of numbers

However, Nissan is stupidly serious or honest. Carlos Ghosn, who was dispatched by Renault, will surrender himself to the management restructuring as he said. “V-shaped recovery” sounds good, but I just matched the financial numbers well. It was doubtful whether Nissan’s original ability had improved compared to the 1990s even in the 2000s.

As expected, the failure of the match spread, and Ghosn was expelled due to the coup of the outstanding executives within Nissan. Unfortunately, for the exhausted Nissan, we can’t find the right people to manage. I think both Mr. Hiroto Nishikawa and Makoto Uchida, who took office as the successor president, made their own efforts, but they can’t organize within Nissan. ” Even if a Hirame employee becomes the president, only Hirame employee will strengthen the surroundings. I didn’t see the air to rebuild again in Nissan, which only spread behind the scenes.

The huge deficit in March 2025 was mainly caused by the sluggishness of North America and China, which supported Nissan’s earnings. North America lacked a wide range of popular hybrid vehicles, resulting in a significant loss for forcibly adding sales due to the accumulation of sales incentives. China’s government’s policy of boosting domestic electric vehicles (EVs) will not be able to sell not only Nissan cars but also Japanese cars at all. The shortage of hybrid vehicles and the Chinese government’s EV expansion measures were known for a long time, but the Nissan management at that time regarded it as a fire on the other side of the river and did not take countermeasures.

In order to survive

Nissan initially expected a deficit of 60 billion yen in the fiscal year ending March 2025. After that, for management restructuring, we added more than 500 billion yen of impairment processing, including restructuring costs due to factory reorganization and personnel reorganization at home and abroad. First of all, the policy is to close Wuhan, China, but this factory just started operating in 22. The fact that they withdrew after only three years is a fact that shows how unpredictable the management was at the time.

I feel a sense of emptiness such as “there is no way to do it”, but I have no choice but to survive somehow. Management integration with Honda, or partnership with Kokai Precision Factory in Taiwan, Toyota’s bailout … There will be various speculations flying around, but first of all, whether Nissan itself is prepared to regenerate on its own.