(News Bulletin 247) – The Japanese group, third member of the Franco-Japanese alliance, has clarified its intentions to take a stake in Ampere which must be listed on the stock exchange next year. It follows in the footsteps of Nissan which had already announced its investment in July.

Mitsubishi Motors’ acquisition of a stake in Ampere, the future subsidiary dedicated to Renault’s electric vehicles and embedded software, is now set in stone.

As early as the fall of 2022, Renault management had discussed this stake in this future entity which should be listed on the stock market in early 2024. The general manager of Mitsubishi, Takao Kato, then confirmed his intention to join the capital of Ampere at the start of the year but without mentioning any figures. He cited the need to carry out “additional studies” to determine this participation.

The Japanese group lifted the veil this Tuesday, October 24 in the morning in a press release, specifying that the maximum investment would amount to 200 million euros.

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Electric offensive in Europe

“Through this initiative, Mitsubishi Motors aims to improve its electric vehicle development technology and expand its range of electric vehicles. The first step in this collaboration will be for Ampere to supply an electric vehicle as an OEM to the European market “, underlines Mitsubishi.

In March, the Japanese group unveiled in the medium term called “Challenge 2025”, which plans an offensive in Europe, by launching automobiles which will rely on the technologies of its partners Renault and Nissan, several models to be supplied by the group to the diamond.

Mitsubishi is following in the footsteps of Nissan, which in July indicated that its stake in Ampere would reach a maximum of 600 million euros.

Luca de Meo, the general director of Renault, indicated last month to the Financial Times that he was aiming for a valuation for the future electric subsidiary which would be between 8 billion and 10 billion euros. On this basis, Nissan’s participation would represent between 7.5% and 6% of the capital, that of Mitsubishi between 2.5% and 2%.

A high-stakes day in mid-November

Renault will hold an investor day dedicated to Ampere in a few weeks, on November 15. Mitsubishi’s announcement will allow it to give the market a better idea of ​​the future distribution of the company’s shareholding, knowing that Renault intends to retain a “significant” majority in Ampere and that the American technology company Qualcomm also intends to invest in this society.

This day will be keenly followed by the market, while several research firms have expressed doubts about the virtues of an Ampere IPO. The bank UBS, for example, only retained a valuation of between 3 billion and 4 billion euros in its forecasts, far from the range cited by Luca de Meo. The bank estimates that it will be difficult for Ampere to meet its medium-term objectives, namely sales of 1 million electric vehicles in 2031 (it is retaining 800,000 vehicles in 2030) and an operating margin of around 10% in 2030.

A risk of cannibalization of Renault shares in favor of Ampere shares is also sometimes mentioned. On this point, the financial director of the French group, Thierry Piéton, tried last week to calm these concerns.

The manager indicated that the company had carried out a detailed analysis of its shareholders to see if its holders could carry out a Renault-Ampere arbitrage. Based on this data “we do not see this as a high risk, there will be some (arbitrages, Editor’s note) but we believe that this will be more than compensated by the value that we will create with an activity (Ampere) which will have all the right conditions for success,” he concluded.