What seemed like an exaggeration or a threat from the Ministry of Industry and of the Generalitat internal company reports confirm this. The cost of closing the plants Nissan in Barcelona reaches the 1,450 million euros, including compensation to personnel, suppliers, early depreciation, the transfer of machinery and the return of subsidies, among other items, according to the documents to which this newspaper has had access.
The aforementioned reports quantify 210 million a year the current costs of the Zona Franca plant, the most relevant for Nissan in Spain. Of these, the largest item corresponds to the labor chapter, with 174 million, while the moderate price of land rental is striking: only 18 million for an area of more than 500,000 m2, in a polygon, that of the Consortium of the Free Zone, considered unbeatable for an industrial location in Barcelona, with its proximity to the port.
In the same documents, a closure scenario is drawn, which still considers as hypothetical the dismantling of the production centers of Montcada i Reixac and Sant Andreu de la Barca. Its closure, confirmed last Thursday by the European President of Nissan, Gianluca de Ficchy, adds 250 million to the expected entry, which explains that the final cost exceeds by long the 1,000 million that the Ministry of Industry had pointed out.
In the workplace, Nissan is aware that it is not going to be cheap for him to leave Barcelona, nor was it for other Japanese companies, such as Yamaha, which eight years ago had to end up agreeing 55 days of compensation per year worked. In the case of Nissan, the estimated allowance for compensation reaches 600 million euros, which means that with a staff of approximately 3,000 workers the average per person would be around 200,000 euros. This naturally includes managers and highly qualified employees.
Those 600 million in workers compensation would be the main item of the 1,450 million of the total cost. The fiscal cost of early repayments is calculated at 310 million, while for the reconditioning of the land another 100 million is calculated, because, as the Ministry of Industry has already warned, “you cannot hand over the keys and leave without further ado ” There is also a forecast of indirect costs, which amounts to 190 million euros, which includes the return of subsidies (100 million), compensation to first-rate suppliers (50 million), and various concepts such as administrative inspections and machinery transfer.
Impact
Almost a third of the group’s new financing will go to liquidate the plants
Although high, the absolute figures are not however the most significant of the price that Nissan is willing to assume. The aforementioned 1,450 million represent almost a third of the 5,000 million in loans that Nissan has requested from the Japanese banks to provide themselves with liquidity to face their first losses in eleven years (almost 5,700 million in the last year) and undertake a restructuring plan that implies reducing its global capacity by 20%. The company headed by Makoto Uchida has agreed to play a secondary role in Europe, where its ally and shareholder Renault will be the benchmark brand and will decide on industrial operations.
It is also significant that, according to the multinational’s own calculations, the cost of closing the Barcelona plants will take almost seven years to recover, through savings.
The same internal documentation that has come into the hands of the Ministry of Industry and the Department of Business confirms that investing to maintain the plants would have been much cheaper. “Closing is more expensive than making the plant competitive,” warned Àngels Chacón two weeks ago.
Grants
The Government and the Generalitat agreed to grant 70 million for a new vehicle
Indeed, Nissan also set a continuity scenario. The Zona Franca plant could be saved, with an investment of 398 million and public aid of 70 million, which both the Government and the Generalitat accepted, although in the end it was useless.
The project was to maintain the Free Zone factory, although with a smaller size: a single line and some 2,5000 workers, 500 less than now. The intention was to focus production on a small electric SUV, because the current models clearly do not have more travel. The pick-up has become almost residual, after the cancellation of the contract to supply units to Mercedes, and the electric van is going to be moved to a Renault factory, as it was done with the diesel version. In internal calculations, the investment was expected to be recovered as early as 2023.
In everyone’s mind was the award of the Ariya, for which some Renault factories also competed. Uchida settled the debate on Thursday: “The Ariya will be held in Japan,” said the CEO. One more example of repatriation of productions, which is also favored by the recent free trade agreement between Japan and the European Union, which has abolished tariffs.
–
