Renault To Name Ghosn's Successor -- WSJ
January 23 2019 - 2:03AM
Dow Jones News
Auto maker's board prepares to name successor to longtime head,
now in Tokyo jail
By Nick Kostov
This article is being republished as part of our daily
reproduction of WSJ.com articles that also appeared in the U.S.
print edition of The Wall Street Journal (January 23, 2019).
PARIS -- Renault SA plans to name a successor to jailed Chairman
and Chief Executive Carlos Ghosn at a board meeting Thursday,
according to people familiar with the matter, a move that would end
the reign of an executive whose more-than-two-decade stint at the
French car maker made him an auto-industry star.
The board's nomination committee is set to recommend that
Thierry Bolloré, Renault's deputy CEO, succeed Mr. Ghosn as chief
executive and that Michelin chief Jean-Dominique Senard take over
the chairmanship of the auto maker, the people said, cautioning
that a last-minute change is possible.
For Renault, Mr. Ghosn's departure would remove an impediment to
a sustainable relationship with Nissan Motor Co., with which it has
a two-decade-old alliance. The 64-year-old Mr. Ghosn was chairman
of Nissan until he was stripped of that post after his arrest in
Tokyo in November in connection with his tenure at the Japanese car
maker,
With its chairman and CEO in jail, Renault in late November
appointed Mr. Bolloré to run the company on a temporary basis.
The car maker had said it might appoint a permanent replacement
for Mr. Ghosn once it became clear that the executive would be
indisposed for the long term. Mr. Ghosn is likely to remain in jail
until at least March after the Tokyo District Court on Tuesday
rejected his latest request to be released on bail, despite his
pledge to abide by strict bail terms, including wearing a
monitoring device.
Mr. Ghosn has been charged with understating his compensation on
eight years of Nissan financial reports and causing Nissan to pay
the company of a Saudi friend who helped him with a personal
financial problem.
He denies wrongdoing. Mr. Ghosn says he kept a record at Nissan
of how much he thought he was worth but describes it as a
hypothetical calculation that didn't bind Nissan to pay him
anything beyond his publicly reported compensation. He says Nissan
received valuable services from the Saudi company and paid it
appropriately.
A separate and continuing probe into Mr. Ghosn's remuneration
and expenses at Renault has found no evidence of wrongdoing.
The Tokyo court that rejected Mr. Ghosn's bail request on
Tuesday didn't give a reason for its decision. A judge at a hearing
on Jan. 8 said Mr. Ghosn was being held because of the danger he
might flee or destroy evidence.
In an attempt to address those concerns, Mr. Ghosn's lead
lawyer, Motonari Otsuru, said he filed a revised bail request
Friday following the rejection of an earlier request. In it, Mr.
Ghosn said he was prepared to be confined to an apartment in Tokyo
and would wear an ankle-bracelet monitoring device as well as hire
private-security guards approved by Japanese prosecutors. He said
he would pay for those measures.
Mr. Ghosn also said that if released on bail, he would refrain
from interacting with any potential witnesses against him in the
case.
Renault would prefer that Mr. Ghosn step down before having to
replace him, according to one of the people familiar with the
matter. The French car maker has informed the executive's lawyer of
its succession plans and the sides are working out how much pension
and deferred compensation Mr. Ghosn is owed, the person said.
"It's in the interest of Renault that he steps down," the person
said. "This would be coherent with the position that the company
has taken and the board has taken from the very beginning."
Mr. Bolloré, 55, joined Renault in 2012, taking over as chief
competitive officer the following year when the company's No. 2
executive, Carlos Tavares, left, eventually joining Peugeot. Mr.
Bolloré's promotion to chief operating officer in early 2018 gave
him more of a public profile and allowed Mr. Ghosn to focus on
strategic issues, such as shoring up the three-way alliance with
Nissan and Mitsubishi Motors Corp.
Like Mr. Ghosn, Mr. Bolloré started his career with Michelin,
spending time in Japan and Thailand after joining the French tire
maker in 1990. He left in 2005 to take up a post in China at
car-parts maker Faurecia SA, staying on at the company until his
move to Renault.
A keen sailor from the northwestern French region of Brittany,
Mr. Bolloré is a distant cousin of Vincent Bolloré, a well-known
executive in France whose family business runs rail and port
concessions in Africa and has a controlling stake in the media
conglomerate Vivendi SA, which owns Universal Music Group.
"He's a sharp leader," said a person who has worked with Mr.
Bolloré since he joined Renault in 2012. "He asks for things very
nicely, kindly, respectfully, but you have to understand very
quickly that it has to be done."
--Peter Landers in Tokyo contributed to this article.
Write to Nick Kostov at Nick.Kostov@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
January 23, 2019 01:48 ET (06:48 GMT)
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