Renault’s Corporate office moves to Chennai; Mahindra-Renault JV announcement on April 10

Renault India has shifted its corporate office to Chennai from Mumbai. We assume that their Design Centre has shifted to Chennai as well. Earlier, Nissan shifted its corporate office to Chennai as its production plant and research centers are in Chennai. Renault brushed up its plans and has laid more focus on India. They confirmed that they will set up their own dealership network and will bring their stylish Fluence and Koleos in CKD form in 2011. Moreover, moving to Chennai would improve synergies within the alliance.

When contacted, a senior official of Renault India has confirmed the development, he said, “Yes, it was a logical progression for us. Renault India is a batch of 10-odd people and we decided quite earlier that we need to move into Chennai. Most of our activities like production, component sourcing, R&D, etc are done in Chennai. On top of that, it will be beneficial for us in creating greater synergies within the Renault-Nissan alliance.” He, however, maintained that its newly-constituted design studio will remain in Mumbai and the company will hire more such designers to ramp up its headcount.

When asked on the speculation that Mahindra-Renault JV is hitting a dead end, he said, “All such reports are baseless and a mere figment of their imagination. He said, “On April10, Renault S.A. will announce changes to its current joint venture with India’s Mahindra & Mahindra Ltd. Both the parties sides have reached an agreement on almost all major issues. We want to restructure the business to take the Logan forward,” as revealed by the representative. He, however maintained that the French automaker would not terminate ties with Mahindra & Mahindra.

The reply from Renault comes after premium Newspaper ‘The Economic Times’  claiming that Mahindra & Mahindra (M&M) is likely to freeze further investments in its troubled joint venture with Renault and allow the latter to take control in the company. Citing unidentified people close to the development, the newspaper said all future investments in the joint venture would be by Renault, which will dilute M&M’s 51 per cent stake as investments progress. ET also stated that the two companies are also in talks on the possibility of letting Renault use part of the 50,000-unit Logan Nashik facility for the manufacture of other vehicles as only 500 cars are currently being sold every month, which leaves much of the capacity idle. Moreover, Renault are likely to use that capacity to manufacture their own cars at the Nashik plant.

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