RNO Renault SA

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 17, 2019).

PARIS -- The French state has asked Renault SA to call a board meeting in the coming days to name a successor to the car maker's jailed chairman and chief executive, Carlos Ghosn, the country's finance minister said Wednesday.

France, which is Renault's biggest shareholder with a 15% stake, has long said that it could move to appoint a successor to Mr. Ghosn once it became clear that the executive would be indisposed for the long term.

Mr. Ghosn, who has spent nearly two months in a Japanese jail since his arrest Nov. 19, lost a request for release on bail Tuesday, meaning he could face many more months in jail if the decision by the Tokyo District Court is upheld on appeal.

"We must now move to a new phase," French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire said on French television station LCI.

"We need a new and durable governance for Renault," he added.

Thierry Bolloré, Renault's deputy CEO, is likely to succeed Mr. Ghosn as chief executive on a permanent basis, people familiar with the matter said. Michelin CEO Jean-Dominique Senard is expected to take over the chairmanship of the company, according to the people, who cautioned that the decision isn't final and needs to be discussed by board members.

For Renault, the ousting of Mr. Ghosn would remove an important stumbling block to working out a sustainable future with Nissan Motor Co., the Japanese car maker with which it has a two-decade alliance.

The 64-year-old Mr. Ghosn was chairman of Nissan until he was stripped of that post after his arrest. He remains Renault's chairman and CEO, though the company has named temporary alternatives to act on his behalf.

Mr. Ghosn has been charged with understating his compensation on eight years of Nissan financial reports and with causing Nissan to pay the company of a Saudi Arabian 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, continuing probe into Mr. Ghosn's remuneration and expenses at Renault is under way.

Renault hired Mr. Ghosn in 1996 and he became CEO in 2005. He is credited with building an alliance among Renault, Nissan and later Mitsubishi Motors Corp. into an automotive behemoth. The partners pumped out 10.6 million vehicles in 2017, with significant market positions in the U.S., Asia and Europe.

Publicly, Renault and Nissan have said they want to continue the partnership, which allows the auto makers to share technology and platforms. Behind the scenes, however, employees at both companies have said Mr. Ghosn's arrest has heightened mistrust.

Renault bailed out Nissan in the late 1990s and still owns a 43% stake in the company, but since then Nissan has grown to become the larger of the two companies. That has led Nissan executives to privately grouse over Renault's reliance on the Japanese auto maker to pad its bottom line.

On Wednesday, Mr. Le Maire said the question of rebalancing the cross shareholdings between Renault and Nissan isn't currently on the table.

Write to Nick Kostov at Nick.Kostov@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

January 17, 2019 02:47 ET (07:47 GMT)

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