Officials from Mitsubishi Motors Corp. and its struggling U.S. unit in Cypress spent early Friday refuting a Wall Street Journal story about a possible sale.
“There is no change to our policy of continuing our North American operations,” a spokesman told the Associated Press. “The U.S. is a key market.”
A statement from Tokyo-based Mitsubishi Motors called the Wall Street Journal story “groundless.”
The parent company refuted reports that its executives met with a private equity investor and industry contractor during January’s North American International Auto Show in Detroit.
The Wall Street Journal reported that Osamu Masuko, the new president of Mitsubishi Motors in Japan, held talks with investor Ripplewood Holdings LLC and the Austrian unit of parts supplier Magna International Inc., citing sources familiar with the discussions.
According to the story, others interested could include automakers such as Fountain Valley-based Hyundai Motor America Inc. and Irvine’s Kia Motors America Inc., both part of South Korea’s Hyundai Motor Co.
The automakers likely would be interested in Mitsubishi’s dealer network here.
What’s really going on is unclear.
Mitsubishi may have held talks about a possible sale,sparking the Journal story,though those could have been fruitless.
Another scenario could be that the unit is up for sale and Mitsubishi is looking to blunt the impact of the news on its dealers and workers.
What is clear is that Mitsubishi is struggling. For more than a year, the automaker has sought to right Mitsubishi Motors North America.
The U.S. arm, which grew fast from 1998 to 2002, saw its strategy of easy credit and marketing to younger buyers backfire three years ago in the form of bad loans.
In 2003, Mitsubishi hired Finbarr O’Neill from Hyundai Motor America to lead a turnaround of the U.S. unit. O’Neill made some headway but left in January.
Some observers speculated O’Neill wasn’t able to secure additional funding from Japan to carry out his efforts.
Mitsubishi suffered a blow last year. DaimlerChrysler AG, which holds a 37% stake in the automaker, decided not to invest more in Mitsubishi.
