carlos ghosn

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Back in 2012, then-Nissan CEO Carlos Ghosn announced that the automaker would revive its Datsun brand more than 25 years after the iconic Japanese brand was originally phased out. Although you could still find the odd Datsun on U.S. roads, Ghosn wanted the name for a new line of low-cost vehicles targeting emerging markets — part of a larger goal of raising Nissan’s overall share of the global car market.

Seven years later, Ghosn is facing criminal charges for alleged financial improprieties, Nissan’s profits are down, and the revived Datsun — now five years into production — is apparently taking market share from its parent company.

As a result, Nissan’s new leadership is apparently planning to scrap the Datsun brand once again. Two company officials told Reuters that the brand would likely be a casualty of a broad recovery plan that would reverse Ghosn's expansion ambitions. The automaker is expected to cut production in many markets and abandon some versions of the Titan pickup.

Plants in the countries originally targeted by the Datsun revival, the officials said, would likely be hit hardest as Nissan focuses on China and the U.S. The new Datsuns, Reuters noted, are made in Indonesia, India and Russia.

The overall restructuring plan will likely be presented before the end of the month, although some final details are reportedly still being worked out.

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Carlos Ghosn has been arrested in Japan and will likely spend a year in jail there, awaiting trial. And he will not be allowed access to a lawyer during that time.

The problem is simple: Japanese companies don’t like to pay competitive, global incomes to top managers. For the most part this means that they must settle for third-rate performers overseas. And live with the miserable market shares in the 7X markets (GDP of EU+US = 7X Japan) that result. When, for every dollar they sell in Japan, they should sell $7 in the 7X, they usually reach 25-30¢. All because they won’t pay enough to get the share that their products usually deserve.

And they stay uninformed about the Information Age and why they have no FAANGs and can’t create them.

Along comes Ghosn. Rescues Nissan. Demands real money. And gets it. Big resentment.

But Nissan, like all Japanese companies, has a board made up of company executives, not outsiders with a fiduciary responsibility for oversight.

So the Board is sloppy. Doesn’t do its work. Likely is not fully informed about Ghosn’t arrangements.

As this case unfurls, Nissan looks worse with every new charge. Japan doesn’t look much better for pressing charges that may prove Nissan’s sloppyness over Ghosn’s culpability.

And if Ghosn gets off so much as one charge and a single cent went through a US bank, Nissan’s liability will be eye-watering

Francis McInerney

Managing Director

FutureCreators