The Nissan Ghosn: from the automotive industry icon to the scandal | Economic news

By ELAINE GANLEY, Associated press

PARIS (AP) – A pioneer and visionary in the automotive industry, Carlos Ghosn is also a sensible man subject to excesses that could have contributed to his surprise fall at the head of the world's best-selling car group.

Ghosn revolutionized the French companies Renault SA, then Japan, Nissan Motor Co., to finally bind them as part of an alliance with Mitsubishi Motor Corp. in their best-selling company.

But although renowned for its ability to reduce industry costs, it has spent a great deal on itself, thanks to the multi-million dollar salaries of Renault, Nissan and Mitsubishi. Ghosn's wedding in October 2016 with his second wife at the Grand Trianon in Versailles, once favored by Marie-Antoinette, featured 18th century actors, an imposing wedding cake and treats.

Like the Queen, the man once considered a king among industry executives in France and Japan has sprung up like a dying star.

Ghosn, 64, was arrested in Japan on November 19 for falsifying his financial reports and misusing funds at Nissan Motor Co. Prosecutors say he is suspected of under-reporting his revenues of $ 44 million over five years. He is currently being held under Spartan conditions in a detention center also housing death row prisoners and recently hanged Shoko Asahara, the leader of the sect.

No charges have yet been laid and Ghosn has made no public comment about this case, but last week the Nissan Board of Directors, by a unanimous vote, ended to his 19 years of reign in the presidency. The board of directors of the French company Renault decided to keep him at the post of general manager, pending the evidence, but appointed a temporary replacement. Mitsubishi Motors' board of directors was scheduled to meet on Monday to discuss the possibility of returning him to the presidency.

Ghosn is admired in Japan for bringing Nissan back from bankruptcy, but fears for its "cost-killer" methods. He started at Nissan by cutting thousands of jobs and closing factories in a country that is reluctant to give up a job for life.

In almost two decades, Ghosn has shaken Nissan's tightly-connected business culture, giving women executive responsibilities and boosting the design and marketing of their car. He put an end to the payment of extortionary gangsters, known as "sokaiya", a courageous gesture that required additional security.

With a salary several times greater than that of the president of his rival Toyota Motor Corp., Mr. Ghosn has distinguished himself in a country of "presidents", even in large companies, who earn mediocre wages to carry out their ordinary careers. Signaling his status as an icon, he is the star of a manga or comic book.

Nissan executives credited Ghosn with working hard, listening and encouraging staff to achieve well-defined goals. He was keen to respect Japanese culture, posing in kimono, visiting factories and eating noodles at the company's cafeterias.

But he also spent a lot of time navigating private jet across time zones and cultures, attending prominent events like the annual World Elite Escape in Davos, Switzerland, the Carpet red of the Cannes Film Festival, a sewing show in Paris. .

His business acumen and fame earned him rock star status at auto shows. However, this also aroused resentment in the ranks of Nissan, said an employee who, on condition of not being named, nevertheless described Mr. Ghosn as a great boss: precise, communicative and temperate with a sense of urgency. ;humor.

The allegations against Ghosn reported by the Japanese media, but unconfirmed, suggest that he used Nissan funds to finance luxury residences in Paris, Beirut, Rio de Janeiro and Amsterdam, as well as for family vacations and other personal expenses.

Nissan chief executive, Hiroto Saikawa, described his boss's alleged misconduct as treason, saying he had too much power and that he was attributed too much merit for Nissan's success.

"It's hard to say, but what I think goes well beyond remorse and outrage," Saikawa told reporters the night after Ghosn's arrest.

Born in Brazil, where his Lebanese grandfather had sought fortune, Ghosn returned to Beirut while he was a child. A Maronite Christian, he received a rigorous Jesuit education, then left for France and studied at the Ecole Polytechnique and the Ecole des Mines.

He debuted in the automotive industry working with tires. In his mid-20s, Ghosn ran a Michelin plant in central France before taking over the company's operations in South America in Brazil. He was CEO of Michelin's North American operations, based in the United States, before moving to Renault SA.

In 2006, Britain awarded him the title of Honorary Knight.

Lebanon, extremely proud of its success, has issued a commemorative postage stamp in its image last year. In France, where the government holds a stake in Renault, it has often met the greatest leaders.

Ghosn has long attributed his success to his multicultural origins and to a permanent "external" identity that has freed him from breaking with tradition: an autobiography of 2003, one of his books, entitled "Citizen of the World". Or "Citizen of the World". "

"It helps us to come from the outside because people do not see you as someone involved in decision making in the past," Ghosn said in an interview with The Associated Press in 2005. "That help when the business is in crisis. "

With so little information leaked as prosecutors question Ghosn and decide to charge him, some believe that the scandal is partly the result of friction between Renault and Nissan: the French media have suggested that the arrest Ghosn was a facility run by Saikawa.

The French government has expressed deep concern about the future of the Renault-Nissan alliance, which it wants to deepen.

These tensions were apparent at an evening organized by the French Ambassador to Japan in Tokyo on the night of Ghosn's arrest. The former Renault chairman, Louis Schweitzer, who had sent Ghosn to Tokyo in 1999 to save Nissan, was among those present, say writers of the Nikkei financial newspaper present at the event.

The champagne glasses clicked but the atmosphere was dark, he said.

As the Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi alliance is the industry's first seller, it would be tragic that the current scandal undermines Ghosn's legacy of diversity and globalization, said Janet Lewis , Managing Director and Head of Industrial Research at Macquarie Capital Securities in Tokyo.

"He did some very hard things for an intern," she said. "Given the multinational nature of Nissan's management team, which I admire a lot, I think it's probably very successful at getting people from very different backgrounds to work together." . "

Yuri Kageyama in Tokyo, Elaine Kurtenbach in Bangkok and Zeina Karam in Beirut also contributed.

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