Nissan Motor (NSANY)

Nissan’s current credit quality is not at a stage where short-term payment capacity is an immediate issue, but it is difficult to treat the company as a stable investment-grade major automaker. The direction improved somewhat with the April 27, 2026 forecast revision, which temporarily reduced short-term downside concerns, but the improvement is not sufficiently clear to confirm credit improvement. Because short-term liquidity is substantial, rapid credit deterioration does not need to be the base case, but the credit view is likely to move over the next several quarters. The FY2025 full-year results on May 13, 2026, FY2026 plan, automotive free cash flow, net cash and rating-agency reactions will be confirmed in close succession, so investor assessment is likely to swing between the view that “liquidity has secured time for restructuring” and the view that “if restructuring is delayed, pressure on market access remains.” Therefore, at this point, Nissan should be treated not as an issuer that has proven recovery, but as a restructuring credit that should be handled conservatively until actual results are confirmed.

This judgment is supported by the fact that Nissan still has large sales and production scale, brand, distribution network and sales-finance platform, and that it had secured automotive cash and cash equivalents of ¥2,149.2 billion and unused committed credit lines of ¥2,576.0 billion as of end-December 2025. The large July 2025 funding also supports the credit floor in the sense that it bought time to get through near-term maturities. However, the FY2025 9M automotive operating loss of ¥234.1 billion, negative automotive free cash flow of ¥691.4 billion, decline in automotive net cash to ¥957.8 billion, and speculative-grade ratings from the three overseas agencies heavily constrain the ceiling on the credit assessment. Ample liquidity is a comfort factor, but as long as negative free cash flow continues, it remains a consumable defense line rather than permanent credit improvement.

The most important point in credit judgment is to distinguish company restructuring targets from improvement confirmed by actual results. Re:Nissan is an important plan targeting positive automotive operating profit and free cash flow by FY2026, but the existence of the plan itself is not proof of credit improvement. The April 27 forecast revision is positive in the short term in that it improved operating profit/loss to a ¥50 billion profit and indicated positive automotive free cash flow in the second half and year-end net cash above ¥1 trillion. However, because the operating-profit improvement includes temporary factors, foreign exchange and cost improvements, credit improvement should not be pulled forward until sales quality in North America, profitable sales in China, the sustainability of fixed-cost reductions and positive automotive free cash flow over multiple quarters are confirmed.