Renault's Irish operations to be taken over by owner of Nissan Ireland

Michael McAleer

French car giant Renault is to sell the Irish operations for its brands to the owners of Nissan Ireland.

Renault Group is already part of a global alliance with Nissan and Mitsubishi Motors.

Kuwaiti-based Cedar Ireland Automotive Ltd, owned by Al Babtain family, already owns Nissan Ireland and the retail group Windsor Motors Limited. They also hold a 50 per cent stake in Autolease Fleet Management Ltd, a joint venture with Allied Irish Banks, which provides business and personal leasing services to the Irish market.

From November, if approved by the competition authorities, Cedar will take over the importation and distribution activities of all Renault and Dacia vehicles. Shortly, it will also add the Renault Group’s Alpine brand to its portfolio. Alpine is currently focussed on sports cars but will become a fully-electric brand.

The decision to opt for a local distributor reverses a 2007 move to take the Irish franchise off Glencullen Distributors, owned by well-known businessman Bill Cullen. Cullen had held the franchise from 1986, when he bought the insolvent Smith Group, the previous owners, for just £1 having agreed to take on about €18 million in debt.

A spokesman for Cedar said the initial discussion on the deal began several months ago, before the controversy surrounding RTÉ payments to Ryan Tubridy for presenting The Late Late Show, of which Renault was the principal sponsor. He declined to comment on any financial details of the agreement.

No redundancies are expected from the deal and Renault said in a statement that the move aims at further strengthening its position locally thanks to an efficient business model supporting both commercial ambitions and customer satisfaction requirements.

Nissan is currently in ninth place in the Irish new car sales, with a 3.89 per cent market share. This deal will add Renault’s 3.54 per cent, and Dacia’s 4.18 per cent shares, added to which will be Renault’s successful commercial vehicle sales, making Cedar one of the biggest automotive importing groups in the country. Renault is second in the new van market in Ireland, with a 15 per cent share, while Nissan has 1.9 per cent and Dacia 0.5 per cent.

According to Renault itself, the deal with Cedar is part of its ‘Renaulution’ plan, which seeks to reverse massive multi-billion euro losses incurred across Europe during the pandemic.

“In terms of brands partnerships, Cedar is a long-standing partner of the Alliance Group, both as dealer for Renault Group and also as Nissan Importer in Ireland,” said Philippe Buros, Senior Vice-President, Sales & Marketing and Services of Renault Group.

James McCarthy, chief executive of Cedar said: “Cedar is proud to become the official Importer of Renault and Dacia for the distribution of the existing product range (including a rich line-up of high-tech electric vehicles) in Ireland. We will continue the successful path of the Renault distribution organisation and add our long-standing expertise in this country.”