AUTONEWS

Renault wants to stay above Nissan
It is increasingly evident that the process leading to the arrest of Carlos Ghosn, the man who was CEO of Renault, the Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi Alliance and chairman of Nissan, was above all strategic in an attempt by the Japanese manufacturer to evade control of the French, who hold 43.4% of Nissan's voting capital, compared to the 15% held by the Japanese in the French brand, but without the right to vote. It is now known, according to Automotive News, that the Japanese government played a leading role in the whole process aimed at collapsing the negotiations between Renault and Fiat Chrysler Automobiles (FCA) in a strategy that would lead Nissan to recover some of the from the Gallic builder.
The Wall Street Jounal claims that Nissan secretly had Ghosn investigated and provided the results to Japanese court, according to sources associated with the lawsuit, all to remove the person who saved her from bankruptcy and fully recovered her, leading Nissan to, for example, investments in electric vehicles, placing it in the best position among European manufacturers. On the other hand, Le Monde argues that the new Renault administration, unlike Carlos Ghosn, does not understand the Japanese way of thinking, for whom "it is the relationship of force that legitimacy and law, not necessarily the fact of being the shareholder .
For weeks, Nissan was hammered by the introduction of a series of changes in governance, always with the aim of removing Renault from these key places. To which the French responded with the threat of blocking the vote, which requires the support of 2/3 of the votes, since the French hold 43.4%. After a long arm, Nissan finally agreed to appoint the chairman and CEO of Renault, respectively Jean-Dominique Senard and Thierry Bolloré, to the new audit and appointment committees. A decision - to be voted on 25 June - was seen as a capitulation by Nissan, with a view to making peace with its French majority shareholder.
It is not known if this yield will be enough to overcome the atmosphere of tension that lives within the Alliance, in which the Japanese want more power and independence and the French do not believe in the honesty of the Japanese. But the biggest obstacle seems to be associated with the governments of both countries, eager to ensure the best possible conditions for their automotive industry. Senard goes on to recall that "he will not be the chairman who will accept a reduction of Renault's influence in the Alliance." As Nissan's results were downright bad in late 2018, since it helped to arrest Ghosn, to the point of having announced lower profits than Renault, despite selling more, the Japanese manufacturer has some solutions ahead of them, but none of them particularly attractive. Especially now that he has managed to "irritate" the heads of Renault and the French government, who will meet in Japan at the G20 summit on 28 and 29 June to try to resolve the crisis.