LONDON: The boards of French automaker Renault and Japanese partner Nissan have approved a major overhaul of their rocky alliance following months of negotiations, the companies said on Monday.

The carmakers said in a joint statement that they “rebalanced” their relationship, with Renault reducing its stake from 43.4 percent to 15 percent, the same size as Nissan’s share of its French counterpart.

The agreement includes Nissan taking a stake of up to 15 percent in Renault’s new electric vehicle venture Ampere.

The companies also announced joint projects in Latin America, India and Europe.

With the deal, the companies said they “open a new chapter for their partnership”.

The Renault board approved the deal on Sunday while Nissan signed off on it on Monday, a week after the agreement was announced.

The agreement comes after months of painstaking negotiations, and repeated delays, as the two firms sought to reset their decades-old alliance after years of tensions.

The international auto alliance began in 1999, when Renault rescued Nissan from bankruptcy.

They were joined by Mitsubishi Motors in 2016, when Nissan took a 34-percent stake in its struggling Japanese rival.

But the union was destabilised by the 2018 arrest of Nissan boss Carlos Ghosn, who claimed the charges against him were intended to prevent him from bringing the Japanese and French automakers closer together.

AFP