Major car firm ‘may sell £500m headquarters to survive' – weeks after axing 20,000 staff and £4bn losses

Scottish Sun

6 days ago

They say they're considering 'all possibilities' to save the company
FOR SALE Major car firm 'may sell £500m headquarters to survive' – weeks after axing 20,000 staff and £4bn losses
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A MAJOR car firm may sell their £500m global headquarters to cut costs in its fight for survival.
This comes after a huge wave of cuts was announced worth a staggering £1.3 billion in addition to axing tens-of-thousands of jobs.
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Major car firm Nissan may be forced to sell its £500 million headquarters
Credit: Getty
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Cost-cutting measures will see thousands of job losses with multiple factory closures
Credit: AFP
Cash-strapped Nissan, Japan's third-largest carmaker, may part ways with its global headquarters in Yokohama, Japan, to fund the company's urgent restructuring plan.
After having moved to the 22-story high-rise in 2009, the car manufacturer is now facing mountains of debt and is on track to cut 20,000 jobs, shut several of its plants and slash billions in costs.
With a glitzy gallery, the flashy headquarters can showcase more than thirty motors and stands in stark contrast to their previous offices.
The company have said that part of their plan has called for reviewing assets that can be sold in a desperate bid to pay for the restructuring.
With its own headquarters in sight, thought to be worth approximately £500 million, Nissan would structure a deal so it could continue to use the site through a lease so its offices and operations remain in place.
A company spokesperson said: "Nissan is considering all possibilities to recover its business performance, but there are no specifics to share at this point of time."
The move is not unprecedented, however, with McLaren doing something similar with its HQ in Woking in recent years.
Nissan confirmed in April that it was anticipating losses of up to £4 billion, its worst annual loss in a quarter century.
This has resulted in drastic measures being implemented under the 'Re:Nissan' plan
The company hopes to have completed an initial £1.3 billion cost-cutting mission by 2026 with remaining losses plugged by a huge wave of closures in a bid to become profitable again.
This will see a reduction in the company's workforce of 20,000 employees by 2027.
Areas including sales, research, administration, development and manufacturing are all expected to be hit hard by the cuts.
As of March 2024, the company had more than 133,000 staff worldwide - meaning a total 15% of its entire workforce is set to be hit.
Nissan is also planning to close seven factories by 2027, including two domestic sites which are thought to be the Oppama and Shonan plants, saving £2.6 billion in the process.
There have also been reports of downsizing or a partial sale of its Tochigi assembly plan and test centre facility north of Tokyo which was recently equipped with manufacturing technologies to assemble electric vehicles.
To underline the dire financial situation, the motor company is even halting the development of certain models to cut its expenses.
While the car company has been hit hard by the effects of Donald Trump's tariff war, Nissan's new CEO, Ivan Espinosa, has admitted the company's financial trouble started a decade ago.
He said: "Let me start by explaining why we are here.
"This is not something that happened in the last couple of years.
"It's more of a fundamental problem that probably started back in 2015, when management thought this company could reach [annual global vehicle sales] of around eight million.
"There were heavy investments both in terms of planned capacity as well as in human resources, but the reality today is we are running at around half that volume. And nobody did anything to fix that until now.'
He aims to strengthen ties with fellow auto manufacturers Renault, Mitsubishi and Chinese ally Dongfeng, following a failed merger with Honda in February.
It's also possible he allows Dongeng to build cars as Nissan's UK factory in Sunderland which, as it stands, does not currently face the threat of closure.
But despite the financial turmoil, Nissan is slated to bring more than ten new models to North American roads soon.
They also plan to introduce the next generation of Nissan Micra to Europe.