Renault’s top executive has written a letter to Nissan urging a shareholder meeting, The Wall Street Journal reported on Sunday, citing the arrest of Carlos Ghosn in Tokyo last month as a “significant risk” to the car makers’ partnership.
Ghosn was apprehended in November on suspicions of under reporting income and misusing company funds. The Journal obtained a letter dated Friday from Thierry Bollore, deputy CEO of French automaker Renault. In the letter, he pressed his counterpart, Nissan CEO Hiroto Saikawa, to call a shareholder meeting “as promptly as practicable.”
Renault owns at least 40 percent of Nissan, which is scheduled to have a board meeting on Monday, The Journal reported. The French company wants a discussion about Renault’s representation within Nissan’s top ranks, the report said.
Ghosh’s “indictment creates significant risks to Renault, as Nissan’s largest shareholder, and to the stability of our industrial alliance,” Bollore wrote in the letter, according to The Journal. “We believe a shareholder forum would be the best manner of addressing these matters in an open and transparent fashion.”
In response to an inquiry from CNBC, a spokesperson for Nissan said the company “has communicated actively and transparently with Renault regarding this matter, and will continue to do so. We remain steadfast in our commitment to the Alliance.” He declined to comment further on the specifics of the discussions between Nissan and Renault.
The arrest of auto industry titan was believed by some to be a palace coupdesigned to remove him from power at Japanese automaker Nissan, just one of the companies Ghosn had a hand in running. However, some analysts say Ghosn’s woes could also spell trouble for Saikawa.
Morningstar analyst Richard Hilgert told CNBC last week he thinks investor confidence in Nissan’s management has been compromised by both the Ghosn scandal, as well as other lingering problems.
Ghosn is considered the mastermind behind the alliance between French automaker Renault and Japanese manufacturers Nissan and Mitsubishi. Renault saved Nissan from the brink of bankruptcy in 1999, and took a 40 percent stake in the company.
