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TOKYO – Nissan Motor CEO Hiroto Saikawa, who admitted to receiving inadequate compensation on Thursday, could see his claim to lead the seriously compromised Japanese automaker, knowing that former president Carlos Ghosn had been ousted for similar reasons.
Saikawa is determined to restructure the company and reduce its workforce by 12,500 by March 2023. The CEO's mistake could prompt Nissan shareholders to follow the initiative of Nippon Life Insurance, an institutional investor who has announced that he voted against keeping Saikawa at Nissan's annual shareholder meeting. . Saikawa's leadership should also be questioned by Renault, Nissan's French partner and largest shareholder.
Saikawa admitted that it was wrongly paid an additional 47 million yen ($ 443,000) after adjusting the conditions for a performance bonus. Admission follows the publication of the findings by the internal investigators. Under the stock appreciation rights system, put in place to boost Nissan's leadership, directors were eligible for bonuses if the company's stock price was performing well.
The Nissan CEO denied having been involved in a scheme to inflate his salary, claiming that he and several other directors had left the deal entirely under the authority of the former representative of Nissan's representative. Greg Kelly, who is currently indicted, and the secretariat of the company.
Saikawa said that he was "deeply sorry for [causing] suspicion, "and added that he" would refund any money to be reimbursed to the company. "He also blamed Ghosn for being behind the system. d & # 39; compensation.
Nikkei learned Thursday that Nissan would postpone the sale of bonds by 250 billion yen. The company had planned to set conditions for the sale of four separate bonds with a maturity of three to ten years, but suspended the issue because of the "circumstances of the issuer".
Saikawa's position was already precarious before the revelation of the misconduct. Nippon Life revealed Tuesday that it voted against the renewal of its term as director at the shareholders' meeting, citing "deplorable events". The insurer voted in favor of all other proposals of the Nissan Board of Directors, including the establishment of committees composed mainly of outside directors and the selection of other directors.
According to a report filed by Nissan in June with Kanto's local finance office, Saikawa had the weakest support among the 11 directors appointed to the meeting. While the other 10 candidates got a favorable vote of nearly 90% – Renault President Jean-Dominique Senard got 99% approval – Saikawa got only one 78% support.
"This scandal justifies the investors who voted against Saikawa at the general meeting," said Seiji Sugiura, senior analyst at the Tokyo Tokai Research Institute. Although the ploy and details of financial misconduct remain confused, the wrongdoing "has accelerated the centrifugal force of Saikawa's position as CEO," Sugiura said. "The return of any misdirected remuneration will not help regain the trust of employees and investors," he said.
The leading proxy advisory firms, Glass Lewis and Institutional Shareholder Services, had previously recommended to shareholders to reject the renewal of Saikawa's mandate, stating that they could not confidently support placing it in a supervisory position compared to other administrators. Not only was Saikawa, then a director representing, not able to discover the alleged financial misconduct of Ghosn over a long period, but the company itself is now accused of having underestimated the company. 39, Ghosn compensation.
Nissan's financial situation also looks bleak. The automaker announced in July a 99% decline in its operating profit from April to June, compared with the previous year, due to weak sales in North America and in emerging markets. Nissan will eliminate 6,400 jobs by the end of the fiscal year and will reduce the capacity of 600,000 vehicles in 14 plants, mainly in emerging countries, by the year 2022.
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