The two biggest consolidation deals in the industry are also the most recent: the takeover of Chrysler by Daimler-Benz in 1998, and the alliance of Renault and Nissan the following year. DaimlerChrysler has been a flop so far. It has taken years to revamp Chrysler, slashing its surplus capacity and reviving the brand with new products good enough to drag it back into the black this year. Meanwhile, top management attention was diverted from growing problems at home as quality slid at Mercedes, which lost its dominance of the lucrative German market to its archrival BMW.

The best justification for the DaimlerChrysler deal was the growing cost of electronics systems in luxury cars. Mercedes was the world leader in such sophisticated electronics, but it was not a volume car producer, which meant it labored with a higher cost base. Daimler’s hope was that, by buying Chrysler, it could enter the volume end of the car market. German discipline was to produce rewards in the world’s biggest and (for good manufacturers such as Toyota, Nissan and Honda) most profitable market.

It did not work out that way. Daimler and Chrysler together are worth less in stock market terms than Daimler alone was before the merger. In 2005 the architect of the deal Jurgen Schrempp was nudged out of his CEO’s chair by leading shareholders.

The deal between Renault and Nissan was a bold move by the French company to gain global scale. Having put its house in order, the privatized French company saw its market capitalization rise as that of loss-making Nissan slipped. So Renault’s CEO Louis Schweitzer grabbed the opportunity to give Renault global reach. He made the Japanese a friendly offer. But he was cautious enough to take at first only a 37% stake.

The French later increased their holding to 44%, as Nissan’s industrial debt was cut by profits and by disposal of the firm’s outdated equity stakes in its suppliers. The deal has paid off. Indeed, Nissan’s earnings have been supporting Renault, as the latter has gone thorough a bad period due to the ageing model range and stagnant markets.

So there are several reasons for the end of takeover activity: the binges of the past have left the predators with, at best, no appetite for more or, at worst, with severe indigestion. Moreover, what is left amounts to slim pickings, as GM found when it decided to pay a $2 billion breakup fee merely to go back on a hastily made promise to buy troubled Fiat, after five years of collaboration had shown the Detroit firm how weak its Italian partner was. This surreal episode was a prophetic moment. Once the very fact that brands with the glamour of Ferrari, Alfa-Romeo and Maserati were available would have produced a scramble among potential buyers. Fiat’s financial difficulties would have been regarded as an opportunity, not a threat. Today no one wants to take them on.