Fitch Ratings downgrades Nissan's credit score

By Mucahithan Avcioglu

ISTANBUL (AA) - The US-based credit rating agency Fitch has downgraded the Japanese carmaker Nissan's credit score, the agency said on Wednesday.

The credit score was dropped from BBB- to BB+.

"The downgrade reflects Nissan's persistently low profitability, with a delayed recovery trajectory against our expectations," it said.

"The Negative Outlook reflects uncertainty about the execution of Nissan's restructuring plan."

"We expect the plan to reasonably cut costs, but revenue and costs are likely to be affected by US tariffs, weak new car sales in the US and south-east Asia and rising incentives in the US; any delay in the progress of the turnaround could lead to negative rating action," it added.

Japanese Nissan and Honda were having merger talks, which began in December but they collapsed on Feb. 13 due to a host of disagreements including Honda's proposal that Nissan become a subsidiary.

If the merger talks were successful, they would have created the world's third-biggest automaker by volume.

Nissan has been seeking its own strategic partner in recent weeks after it dropped to a quarterly loss and announced an emergency turnaround plan in November that entailed the loss of 9,000 jobs.