By Sean McLain in Tokyo and John Stoll in Detroit 

Carlos Ghosn is leaving his chief executive role at Nissan Motor Co., a company he rescued from near-collapse and led for nearly two decades, to take a broader oversight role of the alliance that links Nissan with Renault SA and Mitsubishi Motors Corp.

Mr. Ghosn, 62, will hand the reins at Nissan in April to Hiroto Saikawa, his recently appointed co-CEO, the company said Thursday in Japan. Mr. Ghosn will remain chairman of the Japanese auto company and is expected to stay active in charting Nissan's path.

"There comes a time where you have to make some choices. I chose to pass the baton at Nissan," Mr. Ghosn said in an interview Thursday in Tokyo.

Born in Brazil to Lebanese parents and educated in France, Mr. Ghosn is revered in the global auto industry for engineering Nissan's comeback and its alliance with Renault, a model in the car industry where the need for investment in new technology has increasingly outpaced the ability of any single company to respond.

The Nissan CEO handover addresses one part of the transition to a post-Ghosn era at the alliance, but the largest questions remain unresolved. One is whether the current shareholding arrangement -- in which Renault holds 43% of Nissan and Nissan holds 15% of Renault -- is sustainable. The other is whether anyone can replicate the role Mr. Ghosn has built as a globe-trotting leader of both companies.

Pressure is likely to grow on Nissan and Renault to merge, analysts say. "That pressure is coming from the French government, and Renault management people. but Ghosn has been protecting Nissan," said Takaki Nakanishi, a Japanese auto analyst who owns his own research firm.

As of October, Mr. Ghosn has a third role as chairman of Mitsubishi, the Japanese auto maker in which Nissan acquired a controlling 34% stake last October. Mitsubishi had faced a scandal involving fuel-economy measurements.

He has long telegraphed plans to step back from running day-to-day operations at Nissan but struggled to cultivate potential successors. Mr. Saikawa was appointed co-CEO after the Mitsubishi deal.

A lifelong Nissan employee, Mr. Saikawa was among a group of managers sent to Europe in 1999, after Mr. Ghosn arrived at the company. He moved up the ranks to head Nissan's European operations, before replacing Mr. Ghosn as head of Nissan's U.S. operations in 2007.

Mr. Ghosn said Mr. Saikawa's appointment as co-CEO would allow Nissan to continue to make management decisions even while he took on more responsibilities at Mitsubishi.

The new Nissan chief will face challenges to pick up where Mr. Ghosn left off. His initial success in meeting bold turnaround targets has waned in recent years. Nissan has fallen short of its most recent goals of 8% for both global market share and profit margin.

Despite Mr. Ghosn's best efforts to diversify Nissan's operations globally, it remains highly dependent on the U.S. market and highly exposed to yen-dollar exchange rate fluctuations.

Nissan and Renault faced off in late 2015 with the French government over the balance of power in the alliance. The French government owns 20% of Renault and has long wielded influence. Ultimately, the sides reached a truce in which the government under French law took an expanded voting stake in Renault but agreed to use it only on major strategic matters.

Mr. Ghosn has often said that Nissan wouldn't merge with Renault as long as the French government was a shareholder.

With the Mitsubishi acquisition, the Renault-Nissan Alliance grew to become one of the largest car makers in the world.

The group together produces nearly as many vehicles as General Motors Co., which Mr. Ghosn says allows them to compete on equal footing with GM, Toyota Motor Corp. and others.

Nissan and Renault have been ahead of many competitors in adopting certain technologies, including electrification. The all-electric Nissan Leaf, introduced in 2010, isn't as capable as cars sold by Tesla Inc., but it is among the best-selling electric vehicles in history.

Nissan under Mr. Ghosn has made recent moves to challenge Toyota in its home market. Its Note hybrid has supplanted Toyota's flagship Prius at the top of the Japanese sales charts in two of the past three months.

Mr. Ghosn has said Nissan-Renault needs to lead on autonomous vehicle development. The alliance plans to sells 10 models with autonomous driving technology by 2020.

The management shuffle takes place as more auto makers consider following the Ghosn blueprint. Last week, Peugeot said it is in discussions to buy Germany-based Opel from GM, a move that would add one million vehicles of annual volume and likely lead to cost savings.

Peugeot is run by Mr. Ghosn's onetime lieutenant Carlos Tavares.

Sergio Marchionne, chief of Fiat Chrysler Automobiles NV, has argued that much deeper consolidation is necessary. He advocates a combination of auto makers to form a company that could sell 15 million units a year, dwarfing others.

Write to Sean McLain at sean.mclain@wsj.com and John Stoll at john.stoll@wsj.com

 

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

February 23, 2017 02:48 ET (07:48 GMT)

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