Nissan Hits the Brakes, Pleads for Payment Pause
When your car starts belching smoke and everything seems headed for disaster, there comes a moment when you simply have to pull over, throw your hands in the air, and hope someone stops to help. That, metaphorically speaking, is exactly where Nissan finds itself today: in such deep financial distress that it’s now asking its European and UK creditors for a grace period on payments. Leaked internal communications and business documents paint a picture that’s far from reassuring.
Nissan currently needs to free up about 150 million euros. Not to build something exciting or develop a new supercar, but just to survive. To make ends meet and keep restructuring the company.
The carmaker has already managed to sway some suppliers, offering them delayed payments with modest interest in lieu of immediate cash. In other words, “we’ll pay more—but not now.” And now, once again, patience is being requested. Payments due in June are being pushed back to mid-August or even into the autumn. Suppliers have every reason to raise their eyebrows.
Nissan justifies the move as a necessary step to ensure liquidity. The company must cover day-to-day expenses, reorganize its operations, and meet bond interest obligations. While the headquarters in Japan insists that restructuring efforts are in full swing, the leaked paperwork makes that 150-million-euro gap painfully clear.
All of this unfolds just as Nissan closes out its previous fiscal year with a record loss—750 billion yen, or roughly 5.3 billion dollars. New CEO Ivan Espinosa is forced to focus not on growth, but on survival. His strategy is blunt: cut costs, rethink production and marketing strategies, and reassess partnerships. Not exactly a glamorous agenda.
Espinosa lays blame on the excessive ambitions of the former leadership. Massive investments in new plants failed to deliver either a production boom or increased sales.
Still, there's no real fear that Nissan will vanish. Even in the worst-case scenario, someone will buy it out, and the company will live on as a subsidiary of some larger conglomerate.
