Nissan Plans Shareholders’ Meeting to Vote In New Top Management

(Bloomberg) -- Nissan Motor Co. is considering holding an extraordinary shareholders’ meeting early next year following the recent adoption of a new management team, a person with knowledge of the matter said.

Incoming Chief Executive Officer Makoto Uchida, 53, will probably join the board, along with new Chief Operating Officer Ashwani Gupta, 49, the person said, asking not to be identified because the appointments aren’t yet public. The meeting is being held to formally appoint the executives to the board after their promotion, which will happen no later than Jan. 1.

The changes are aimed at aligning new top management with the automaker’s board, which has acted rapidly and decisively in the past month to replace former CEO Hiroto Saikawa after a pay scandal. Nissan’s board itself underwent a big overhaul earlier this year following the arrest of Carlos Ghosn for alleged financial crimes.

Jun Seki, 58, the new vice COO, probably won’t join the board, while Saikawa will probably exit, the person said, adding that it’s not yet clear whether interim CEO Yasuhiro Yamauchi will also leave.

A representative from Nissan didn’t respond to a request for comment.

Nissan’s new board and management team faces monumental challenges. They need to reverse a slide in profit and execute a plan to cut 12,500 jobs. At the same time, auto sales are decelerating across the globe and new technologies from self-driving cars to electrification are disrupting the industry. The Japanese automaker also needs to repair its relationship with top shareholder Renault SA, which was destabilized after Ghosn’s ouster.

The Japanese automaker’s board currently consists of 11 directors. The exit of a Nissan-based director and the addition of Gupta, who built his career working mainly on the global alliance between Nissan, Renault and Mitsubishi Motors Corp., where he was serving as COO, could change the power dynamics of the board, the person said. Another factor is the possible exit of Renault CEO Thierry Bollore from his seat on Nissan’s board.

Even so, by choosing three executives to lead Nissan together, board Chair Yasushi Kimura suggested at a news conference this week that no one can dominate decision-making, a clear reference to Ghosn’s years of having an outsized influence over Nissan and the alliance.

To contact the reporters on this story: Reed Stevenson in Tokyo at rstevenson15@bloomberg.net;Masatsugu Horie in Tokyo at mhorie3@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Young-Sam Cho at ycho2@bloomberg.net, Reed Stevenson, Ville Heiskanen

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