Nissan halts investment plans

[LondonManc]

Doesn't actually make sense at all, of course you can run it like that and it will "work" but will be less efficient. In the end a world with protected markets is generally worse off and poorer. The main reason the US was wealthier and more successful than individual European countries was that companies had big markets to sell into, they had economies of scale and they could grow their companies easily. A UK centric company won't get very far. After the empire disappeared quite a few larger UK companies failed as their markets shrank. It was the EU that breathed life into the UK.

It makes more sense for countries to specialise and excel in some industry, so for example London banks do business all over the world and provide thousands of well paid contracts in the City. If every country retreats into its shell London becomes much smaller, then people end up in small companies just manufacturing for the UK, their budgets will be constrained and IT "folk" will take a cut in pay and hanker after the good old days of globalisation.

That relies on the world functioning as one rather than it does at the moment.

It's not in key peoples' interests for the world to work together.

[Cirrus]

. Profitable in this sense is accounting, and includes tax breaks, depreciation writeoffs, and other incentives and costs. “Profits” for an individual manufacturing plant are generally not based on commercial / retail sales.

You're missing the perspective. Nissan is multi-national, not international.

Nissan might set up a car delivery organisation with hundreds of transporters. It might make annual returns on profit and loss but I'm sure you can see Nissan would not close it because it was losing money. It would just be a cog in the machine and any loss made by the subsidiary would be to the gain of the parent.

Nissan UK makes Qashqais etc most of which are exported. Nissan and Renault sell Quashqais but also many other imported vehicles. Sunderland's 'profitability' is irrelevant. What Nissan/Renault want to know is how the UK as a whole does. So they can make a loss on Sunderland (in Companies House/HMRC terms) that might help lower their overall CT etc. Obviously the motivation would be to release profits elsewhere, where they may be more useful or taxed less (yes transfer pricing still rules the roost). Brexit per se will add friction but the lower labour and UK sourced component costs (in euro) can compensate for this. Add to that a compliant workforce (who can be involved in playing one global union group versus another as they claw each other's eyes out to hang onto jobs) and you have a global justification for maintaining Sunderland whatever the local profit and loss accounts look like.

[meridian]

You're missing the perspective. Nissan is multi-national, not international.

Nissan might set up a car delivery organisation with hundreds of transporters. It might make annual returns on profit and loss but I'm sure you can see Nissan would not close it because it was losing money. It would just be a cog in the machine and any loss made by the subsidiary would be to the gain of the parent.

Nissan UK makes Qashqais etc most of which are exported. Nissan and Renault sell Quashqais but also many other imported vehicles. Sunderland's 'profitability' is irrelevant. What Nissan/Renault want to know is how the UK as a whole does. So they can make a loss on Sunderland (in Companies House/HMRC terms) that might help lower their overall CT etc. Obviously the motivation would be to release profits elsewhere, where they may be more useful or taxed less (yes transfer pricing still rules the roost). Brexit per se will add friction but the lower labour and UK sourced component costs (in euro) can compensate for this. Add to that a compliant workforce (who can be involved in playing one global union group versus another as they claw each other's eyes out to hang onto jobs) and you have a global justification for maintaining Sunderland whatever the local profit and loss accounts look like.

I’m pleased you know that Nissan is thinking of the U.K. group as a whole. And yet, Nissan are reportedly halting investment plans if there is no deal.

Sounds like Sunderland’s profitability _is_ important, to me. Good luck, though.

[washed up contractor]

Why do people write a statement like "profitability_is_important" with the underscore between words? Is it the new bolding or is it just a Scottish thing!?

[BlasterBates]

Why do people write a statement like "profitability_is_important" with the underscore between words? Is it the new bolding or is it just a Scottish thing!?

This is a variable naming convention.

[meridian]

Why do people write a statement like "profitability_is_important" with the underscore between words? Is it the new bolding or is it just a Scottish thing!?

I’m on an iPad, and can’t be bothered remembering most of the bbcode tags to type them out manually.

[darmstadt]

Why do people write a statement like "profitability_is_important" with the underscore between words? Is it the new bolding or is it just a Scottish thing!?

Before computing was known as IT and populated by PFY's who can only work with WYSIWYG and can only operate a mouse, the way to highlight text as bold was to use _bold_

[Cirrus]

And yet, Nissan are reportedly halting investment plans if there is no deal..

I think Carlos Ghosen actually said they are halting investment whilst they remain in the dark. I don't think they alluded to any particular outcome either way.

[meridian]

I think Carlos Ghosen actually said they are halting investment whilst they remain in the dark. I don't think they alluded to any particular outcome either way.

If you want to be pedantic about it, sure. If every permutation of Brexit made no difference to Nissan then they wouldn’t announce anything - clearly, there are possible permutations of Brexit that would result in Nissan halting investment.

Like I said, good luck though.

[vetran]

This is a variable naming convention.

ah Glaswegian Notation?