With the recent announcement that foreign competitors Renault SA and Nissan Motor Co. are considering purchasing a significant stake in General Motors Corp., the hunter has become the hunted. If the proposed partnership goes forward, it would reshape the global auto industry and may give struggling GM the aid it needs to revive.

On June 30, the fiercely private and mercurial investor Kirk Kerkorian’s investment company, Tracinda Corp., sent a letter to General Motors (GM) Chairman and CEO G. Richard Wagoner Jr. and the auto giant’s board asking them to consider some kind of tie-up with Renault and Nissan. Last week’s letter said that Renault and Nissan are receptive to including GM in their partnership and purchasing a 20 percent minority interest for $3 billion.

Billionaire investor Kirk Kerkorian could seize control of General Motors Corp. easily with help from automakers Nissan and Renault, reports The Associated Press.

Kerkorian’s Tracinda Corp. owns 9.9 percent of GM’s shares. If Renault SA of France and Nissan Motor Co. of Japan each buy stakes of up to 10 percent, they collectively would be the largest shareholder and could have their way with the icon of American industry, analysts said yesterday.

GM is a closely held company, with six entities controlling more than 60 percent of its common stock, making it relatively easy to collect 30 percent or 32 percent of the shares, said Gerald Meyers, the former chairman of American Motors Corp. With about one-third of the shares, no one else would be large enough to stand in the way, Meyers said.

With such control, the disgruntled Kerkorian could oust Wagoner and replace him with Carlos Ghosn, CEO of both Renault and Nissan. (Renault owns 44 percent of Nissan.) The boards of Renault and Nissan on Monday authorized Ghosn to begin negotiations with GM, if GM is amenable.

Ghosn, who has been called “a miracle worker,” gained a reputation as a strict cost cutter while leading the revival of Nissan. He rescued Nissan from the grave after it was acquired by Renault, closing down car plants and culling 21,000 heads from the payroll to lead Nissan back from near bankruptcy when he took over as CEO in 1999. And indeed, having executed an actual turnaround after an acquisition is a rare commodity. But U.S. sales at Nissan and its luxury Infiniti division are off a combined 19 percent in the first six months of this year.

Ghosn and Kerkorian have discussed the possibility of Renault and Nissan buying a minority stake in GM and forming an alliance with the ailing automaker, which is battling rising costs, fierce competition from Asian automakers and shrinking sales in the U.S.

Carrie Bloom, a spokeswoman for Kerkorian, would say only that Nissan and Renault are interested in purchasing a minority interest in GM. She would not comment when asked about replacing management or taking control of the company.

Some experts say it is likely other institutional shareholders will join Kerkorian, giving him control of GM with only a minority investment.

Meanwhile, David Healy, an industry analyst with New York-based Burnham Securities Inc., said Kerkorian is merely using news of the potential alliance to push up GM’s stock price. He called the prospect of taking control of the company preposterous but cautioned that GM still must pay attention to Kerkorian because of his success as a corporate raider and because he has a representative, Jerome York, on GM’s board.

Likewise, such talk of an alliance may be part of a pressure campaign by Kerkorian to get Wagoner to sign onto a far more radical restructuring plan than the one-third cut in GM’s workforce and 20 percent reduction in production capacity now underway

Many other observers, however, question what GM would gain by an alliance.

In the last year, GM, the nation’s largest automaker, lost $10.6 billion last year but made a $445 million profit in the first quarter of 2006. The automaker unveiled cost-cutting measures that include concessions from the United Auto Workers (UAW) on retiree health care; plans to close about a dozen North American plants; incentives to hourly workers that slashed 35,000 jobs; and cuts in white-collar benefits, executive salaries and director compensation. Those moves are projected to save $8 billion a year.

GM also is already showing results with a $445 million profit in the first quarter of this year. Second-quarter results are due out this month.

The company also has new models coming out that could boost sales in the second half of the year.

Yesterday GM said its board of directors will meet by telephone tomorrow (Friday), a week after Kerkorian disclosed his efforts to form the alliance with Renault and Nissan.

Spokeswoman Toni Simonetti said the meeting was scheduled before Kerkorian proposed the three-way alliance, but she would not disclose what was on the agenda.

If the coup a serious tie-up between GM and Renault-Nissan does go forward, no doubt it would definitely be a game changer for the global industry. It would reshape the global auto industry, point of fact. And while investors hope Ghosn, if appointed, would bring magic to the nation’s largest automaker, there is no guarantee whatsoever that just because Nissan succeeded, an attempt to turn GM around would succeed.

Plus GM has so many brands and so many models. A stake in the biggest U.S. automaker might stretch the Nissan/Renault CEO too thin. And what about Nissan and Renault; will they miss out due to the managerial overreach? Can Renault’s man give struggling GM the aid it needs to revive? Is this all just media-grabbing, Wagoner-scaring talk?