Photo: Nissan resorted to radical measures (nissan.co.th) Author: Konstantin Shirokun
Nissan has undergone a complete management change. Makoto Uchida has announced his resignation. Ivan Espinosa, who currently holds the position of Director of Strategic Planning, has been appointed in his place. Hideyuki Sakamoto will also leave his position as Executive Director of Manufacturing and Supply Chain Management. Teiji Hirata will take his place.
RBC-Ukraine reports this with reference to the Nissan press service.
In addition, personnel changes affected the entire top management of Nissan, including heads of regional divisions. Formally, Makoto Uchida and Hideyuki Sakamoto will remain in their positions until June, but from April 1, the Nissan executive committee will begin reporting to Ivan Espinosa.
According to the official version, such radical changes in the management team are necessary to “achieve the company's short-term and medium-term goals, as well as for its long-term growth.”
The new top management's first priority will be to implement the company's anti-crisis plan. However, according to the Japanese press, Honda is still ready to lend a helping hand by making Nissan its subsidiary. Nissan's board of directors probably decided that it would be better to join the alliance on Honda's terms than to go bankrupt, and therefore removed the main obstacle to the merger in the person of Makoto Uchida.
Last fall, it became known about the Japanese automaker's dire situation, which desperately needed an investor. Already at the end of December, the merger project with Honda was officially announced. However, in February it became clear that the merger would not take place, since the parties could not come to mutually beneficial terms of the deal.
The fact is that the original plan assumed the creation of an equal joint venture, under whose umbrella the companies Honda and Nissan would come, but Honda, taking advantage of its dominant position, insisted on a different form of unification. Nissan was to become its subsidiary, which was actively opposed by Nissan CEO Makoto Uchida, who did not want to turn the company entrusted to him into a subsidiary of Honda.
Nissan has already taken steps to save itself, but its financial situation still leaves much to be desired, and the company's board of directors has taken emergency measures.
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