11:02 am, November 12, 2024
Nissan shares jumped to their highest in 15 years after a hedge fund took a 2.5% stake in the struggling business.
Earlier today (November 12) shares were up around 20 per cent and at the point the market closed it was up nearly 13%.
Activist investor Effissimo Capital Management, who manage the fund ECM Master Fund, is believed to be behind the investment.
The Singapore-based hedge fund is known for investing in companies that are in distress, and previously took on Toshiba Corporation.
Last week, Nissan announced it was looking to cut costs to save around $2.6bn including selling up to 10% in Mitsubishi Motors and losing 9,000 employees globally.
This new shareholder has helped it to recouping most of the losses from the previous announcement.
CEO Makoto Uchida blamed new Chinese brands and hybrid apodtion in the US for the company’s drastically falling profit.
He said: ‘We didn’t foresee HEVs ramping up this rapidly (in the U.S.).
‘We did start to understand this trend towards the end of last fiscal year, but the model year switching for our core models didn’t go as smoothly.’
It is currently unknown if this new stake comes with voting rights, but Bloomberg reports that Nissan is ‘continuously engaging with institutional investors and analysts from securities companies’.
