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)
Copyright (c) 2017 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.