Carlos Ghosn was, until Monday, a titan of the global car industry. The first person to lead two Fortune 500 companies at the same time, he also enjoyed an almost unique position as a foreign chief executive of a major Japanese company – even gaining the honour of a manga comic book version of his life and rice sculptures of his face in bento lunchboxes sold to Japanese businessmen.
Yet in a remarkable development which has shocked the automotive industry, Ghosn will now be dismissed by Nissan on Thursday after alleged financial irregularities. Nissan did not hold back in its statement on Ghosn, accusing him and a senior colleague of “significant acts of misconduct” including understating his pay to regulators and misusing company assets. Renault and Mitsubishi Motors, both of which Ghosn also chairs, have yet to respond.
The ousting leaves the Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi alliance – the maker of one in every nine cars manufactured worldwide last year – without its totemic leader as the electric and autonomous car revolutions threaten to upend the business models of established car manufacturers.
Born in Brazil in 1954 to Lebanese immigrants, Ghosn’s ascent to the pinnacle of the global car industry began in France, where he studied at the prestigious École Polytechnique in Paris before joining Michelin, the French tyre manufacturer. At 27 he was manager of a Michelin factory in France; at 36 he was chief executive of the firm’s North American operations.
In 1996 Ghosn (which rhymes with “cone”) was poached by Renault, where he made his mark with a deep restructuring – earning a reputation for a sleek but ruthless management style, and a nickname, “Le Cost Killer”.
He repeated the trick at Nissan after Renault took a 43.4% stake in 1999, slashing employee numbers but gaining a heroic reputation in Japan for the rapid turnaround. Mitsubishi, dented by a fuel economy fixing scandal, joined the alliance in 2016, creating the world’s top-selling passenger car manufacturer through linked shareholdings.
Yet Ghosn provoked ire as he gained the superstar salary to match. In 2016 he lost a vote on pay as the French government, a major shareholder, objected to a €7.4m (£6.6m) package. He also earned a 735m Japanese yen (£5m) salary from Nissan and 227m Japanese yen from Mitsubishi for the year ending in March 2018, according to annual filings.
Another pay vote at Renault this year narrowly passed, lessening some of the pressure on Ghosn as he was thought to be exploring a full merger between Renault and Nissan.
But thoughts of simplifying the unorthodox structure are now likely to take a backseat as the remaining executives deal with a plunging share price and start a long overdue hunt for a successor to one of the world’s most prominent businessmen.
