Major car firm ‘discontinuing cheapest model & halting pay rises' – weeks after axing 20,000 jobs and £4bn losses
A MAJOR car firm is reportedly discontinuing its cheapest model and halting pay rises just weeks after announcing £4billion in losses.
The struggling car maker had announced plans to axe over 20,000 members of staff due to soaring production costs and disappointing sales.
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Cash-strapped Nissan, Japan's third-largest carmaker, is already facing billions in losses - its worst annual loss in a quarter century.
Nissan is looking to raise £5.2billion to stay afloat, with UK Export Finance underwriting a £1billion loan - which will support the beleaguered company.
Now, the company has started offering buyouts to US workers and has suspended merit-based wage increases worldwide, reports Reuters.
As part of the cuts, Nissan has offered separation packages to workers at its Canton plant in Mississippi.
Salaried workers in human resources, planning, information technology and finance have also been offered similar packages.
Merit-based pay increases have also been suspended worldwide by Nissan for the current business year, in a separate email seen by Reuters.
Christian Meunier, Nissan America's chairman, said the buyouts are 'crucial for Nissan's comeback' in the US, its most important market.
'While substantial efforts have been made in the US to help right-size Nissan, we need to take additional, limited, strategic action here at a local level,' Meunier said in an email.
And Nissan has also discontinued its cheapest model, the manual-equipped Versa, according to reports.
The Japanese automaker halted making the Versa with the five-speed manual at its Aguascalientes, Mexico, factory, according to Automotive News.
The publication stated that a "person with knowledge of the matter" revealed that the most affordable new car on the market would see "production cease".
It is understood that the rest of the Versa lineup will continue as usual but this is yet another huge blow to the carmaker.
It comes after reports the manufacturer is planning to cut its number of factories from 17 down to 10.
This has prompted fears that the brand's Sunderland factory could be under threat.
While Nissan has not confirmed the fate of its only UK factory, its CEO Ivan Espinosa has insisted that more electric cars will be produced there.
It is hoped that the £1billion loan from Nissan's lenders, underwritten by The Government, will protect the site.
The huge cash injection is just a fifth of the 1Trillion Yen needed by the company to survive.
It will also look to issue as much as 630billion yen in convertible securities and bonds, including high-yield and euro notes.
Reportedly, the firm is looking to sell-and-lease-back its Yokohama headquarters alongside several properties in the United States.
Finally, the struggling car manufacturer is eyeing a sale of its stakes in Renault and battery maker AESC Group.
The aggressive fundraising plans underscore Nissan's rapidly deteriorating financial and operational position, despite efforts by newly appointed chief executive Ivan Espinosa to turn the company around.
Development on other Nissan models has been paused, whilst the company tries to balance its books.
Work on all 'advanced and post-FY26 product activities' has been paused, though Nissan has not confirmed which particular vehicles will face suspension.
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[Your discharge date] was not disclosed until some time later. There was nothing I could do about it," Mr Williams said. Mr Williams and his wife Wendy believe about 400 men were discharged in the same 'first wave' as him, with about 2,600 going in the 'second wave' in 1972, receiving a substantially improved Williams said: "What did this 400 do that was so wrong they had to be discriminated against financially?"She added that the extra money would have made a "vast difference" to their couple launched a series of appeals to various official bodies once they realised what had May 1984, Mr Williams was told by the MOD that both his and his brother-in-law's pension "are correct" and the disparity was due to "a pay rise for CPO's [Chief Petty Officers] in the intervening two years which is reflected in the basic pension awarded".He continued to fight his case throughout the 1980s, 1990s and 1998, the Armed Forces Personnel Administration Agency told Mr Williams that in the period between the two phases, "changes were made [to the military pension] but these changes were not retrospective" and that his pension reflected his "full and correct entitlement". Over the years Mr Williams has been supported by some of Stroud's 2019, Labour MP David Drew wrote to Penny Mordaunt, the Defence Secretary at the time, to highlight Mr Williams' case, believing he was the victim of "an injustice" and had been "unfairly treated".Mr Drew argued that comments made by senior politicians in the late 1960s about intended improvements to military pay meant that possible differences in pensions should have been describes Mr Williams' case as "shocking" and that "both the process and the documentation surrounding the volunteer redundancies were ethically flawed".But ultimately, Mr Williams received the same answer from everybody he asked to look at his case – that his pension was correct based on the rules at the Williams still maintains that before he left, he never had the effect of different discharge dates explained to him – and that he would never have accepted redundancy on the earlier date had he known an extra two years would have effectively doubled his pension. Mr Williams' case has similarities to a fight waged by other military veterans over their Monaghan was involved with the Equality for Veterans Association (EfVA) which also campaigned against pension decisions in the rules before April 1975 meant that in most circumstances, servicemen had to serve 22 years to be eligible for an armed forces pension in addition to the state Monaghan left the RAF at the end of 1974, having accrued 14 years' service, including in Singapore and the middle he left a few months later, he would have received a military pension. The rule change in 1975, like rules on pensions generally, were not retrospective. The issue was debated in parliament in 2015, with then-Defence Minister Anna Soubry saying making changes to pension policy retrospective would break an "essential principle" and "would lead to widespread, long-term and unmanageable consequences for both this government and future governments".Mr Monaghan believes communication from the MOD was not good enough."Everyone was kept in the dark," he said."They knew nothing about [pensions] when they were young."We never had a brief on pensions. We were never given any insight and probably we didn't have any interest because I was a young man."The Equalities for Veterans Association was disbanded a few years ago – because of a lack of success and the dwindling number of surviving veterans from that period. Mr Williams says he feels "very bitter" about his experience but hopes that by speaking out publicly for the first time, he can bring more attention to his also hopes any other servicemen still alive and affected by the same issue will come added he intends to continue his campaign by contacting the current Stroud MP, Labour's Simon Opher, in the hope he will take up the Williams said: "I'm just a stubborn old sod and I'm not going to give in. I would appreciate it if anybody said to me 'you were right and we were wrong'."
