Toyota Motor Corporation and Isuzu Motors have released a joint statement announcing an agreement to “dissolve their capital tie-up”, with Toyota adding that it planned to sell its entire stake in Isuzu at some point “in the future”.
Toyota currently holds 50 million Isuzu shares, which equates to 5,89 percent (and makes Toyota the brand’s third-largest shareholder).
The statement added that the two companies intended to “maintain their strong relationship”, through ongoing joint development projects related to “basic technologies and the like”, and would remain open to the possibility of future collaboration.
In November 2006, Isuzu and Toyota signed a basic agreement to utilise each other’s operational resources in the fields of development and production focusing on diesel engines, to provide mutual technical assistance and to create a framework capable of capitalising on the resulting synergistic effects, and to examine the feasibility of collaborative projects. At the same time, Toyota also agreed to obtain a stake in Isuzu.
But, prompted by what the brands describe as “changes in the market environment”, the companies suspended some of the planned projects, and with “little specific progress achieved in other collaborative efforts”, they agreed to re-examine the capital relationship based on the current business situation.
