French automaker Renault said on Tuesday that losses at Japanese unit Nissan Motor will cost it 1.15 billion euros (1.57 billion dollars) in the first quarter of this year.
Nissan Motor, Japan‘s number-three automaker, announced earlier Tuesday its first annual loss in almost a decade and said it expected to remain in the red this year because of slumping sales.
Nissan, which is cutting 20,000 jobs to cope with the global economic crisis, posted a net loss of 233.7 billion yen (2.4 billion dollars) in the year to March 2009, against a year-earlier profit of 482.3 billion yen.
Renault, which holds a 44 percent stake in the Japanese company, said Nissan’s losses in the three months to March would have an estimated negative impact of 1.15 billion euros on its own first quarter performance.
In 2008, Renault had a net profit of 571 million euros, with Nissan making a positive contribution to earnings of 345 million euros.
Last month, Renault reported that its first quarter sales plunged 30.8 percent to 7.08 billion euros as the worst global slump in decades devastated the auto market.
It said then that it expected this year to prove “volatile.”
