The new look for Nissan and its dealers is receiving a solid boost from the growth-minded Nissan Motor Acceptance Corp.

In close alignment with the parent company’s aggressive expansion plans, NMAC is looking at adding insurance products to its present limited portfolio of dealer financing services.

“Currently,” said NMAC President and CEO Katsumi Ishii in an exclusive interview with F&I Management and Technology, “we are concentrating on financing dealership real-estate projects, as well as increasing our floorplanning and retail loan and lease volume.”

“But Nissan and Infiniti dealers have been expressing interest in offering Nissan-brand service contracts and insurance policies for their vehicle sales. We are studying the concept, though no decision on entering this market has been made.”

Outside the Nissan headquarters building in Gardena, Calif., displays of the new Nissan dealership exterior design and signage show where NMAC is pointing its capital-loan funding. The No. 1 Nissan volume dealer in the United States, Universal City Nissan in nearby Los Angeles, has employed the modernized design on its new dealership, as have UnitedAuto Group’s DiFeo Nissan in Jersey City, N.J., and the Van Tuyl Group’s Trophy Nissan in Mesquite, Texas.

Ishii, 47, is a finance expert who has led NMAC on a conservative growth program since financial crises hit the U.S. company in the mid-1990s and the parent organization in Japan in the late 1990s. Previously vice-president for finance of Nissan North America, which he joined in 1990 after 13 years in finance with Nissan Motor Company in Tokyo, Ishii recalls the losses sustained by inflated lease residual values on Infiniti and Maxima cars.

“It was a disaster,” he declared. “We had taken back something like 52,000 offlease vehicles. Never again, we said. Now, after taking a very cautious stand on setting the residuals, our offlease inventory was only about 10,000 units, out of 80,000, that went offlease in 2001, which was much more manageable.”

Ishii works closely with the Nissan and Infiniti dealer councils and hears the members voice their needs to be competitive on leases and incentives. But he argues that dealer satisfaction is enhanced by remaining consistent on credit decisions – a stand NMAC took in passing on the “zero percent” wave of loan offers this past fall.

“Offering competitive products certainly is important,” he told F&I Management and Technology Magazine, “but we can’t compromise on our goal of protecting the business and its profitability.”

The parent company’s financial plight in 1997 and 1998 led to the takeover by Renault, which in turn has resulted in a reinvigorated product development program and first-half profits in the current fiscal year.

“We’re looking at the long range for the 1,100 Nissan and 150 Infiniti dealers, and they’re fully supportive of that,” contends Ishii, who joined Nissan as a cost analyst in 1977 after graduation from Tokyo’s Keio University. He majored there in economics and has a master’s degree from the University of Illinois.

“We recognize that longtime Nissan dealers have been loyal to us through thick and thin – and we want to share with them in updating their buildings and improving their customer satisfaction ratings and repeat buying scores.”

To cement dealer relations, NMAC has established a four-dealer task force to advise Ishii on marketing problems as they occur. Dealer council chairmen Pat Hoban, of Atlanta, for Nissan, and Warren Zinn, of Miami, for Infiniti, are consulted frequently as well.

One controversial area for smaller-volume dealers still is in the “pending” stage at Nissan – an honors award program like Ford’s Blue Oval, Chrysler Group’s Five Star and the one being piloted by Nissan archrival Toyota Motor Sales USA.

“It’s important to recognize top-performing dealers,” says Ishii, who became president and CEO of NMAC early in 2000. “But we’ve made no decision yet on when our program will roll out.”

NMAC has 500 employees at its Dallas operations center and 100 in its Gardena headquarters, up the road from Nissan North America’s building in Torrance, Calif. The captive lender was incorporated in November, 1981, and began its dealer coverage the following spring in Orange County, Calif.

Ishii says that penetration rates among Nissan and Infiniti dealers are growing, with 300 doing their floorplanning with NMAC, and retail Nissan financing penetration at 40 percent for loans and 10 percent for leases. Infiniti’s lease penetration with NMAC’s Infiniti Financial Services ranges from 60 to 80 percent, according to Ishii.