Ghosn's New Year's Game: "Lebanese Phoenix" unwilling to be burnt and Rashomon whose interests are entangled.

[? A billion euro guide? ]? Behind this "Lebanese Phoenix" is a "Rashomon" involving interest disputes.

By Zeng Zeng Le

Editor Yang Yaru

"He told me that Nissan may go bankrupt in two to three years." 65438+122, Ghosn's defense lawyer and former prosecutor Yuan Shenfu (Shenfu? Gohara) said in an interview with Bloomberg. Two days before carlos ghosn, the former chairman of Nissan Motor Co., fled Japan, Noboru Harahara and Ghosn met for the last time on 20 19.

However, the original Shintaro revealed that Ghosn did not explain the specific details of Nissan's severe forecast. In this regard, Nissan spokesperson Zi Momos (Zi? Momose) declined to comment.

18 years ago, Nikkei Business Weekly conducted a survey on 900 large and medium-sized business owners in Japan. "Who is the most leading entrepreneur in your mind?" Ghosn won the first prize with 450 votes, crushing the second-ranked Sony founder Akio Morita with absolute advantage.

At that time, this entrepreneur who was once regarded as a "national hero" created the "myth" of "Nirvana Rebirth" of Renault, Nissan and Mitsubishi. At the end of 20 19, it was such a "samurai", but at the age of 65, he fled Japan in the most lonely and mysterious way in front of the whole world. From "savior" to "fugitive", Ghosn's eyebrows have been polished more "cold and sharp" in 20 years.

After being detained for more than one hundred days, Ghosn made a public appearance in Lebanon on June 8, 65438/KLOC-0. On that day, the 65-year-old entrepreneur didn't seem to show a trace of fatigue on his face.

In fact, it was the "escape drama" at the end of 20 19 that pushed the whole thing to a climax. Ghosn managed to slip away under the nose of the Japanese authorities and fled to Lebanon. All unsolved mysteries are really full of stories. The latest news shows that according to Japanese media reports, Ghosn fled from Japan to Lebanon, or heard that the trial would be postponed.

At the previous press conference, Ghosn pointed directly at the Japanese prosecutor, saying that "all the charges against him are completely defamation and an organized conspiracy" and said that he has become a "victim" of Japan's getting rid of the finger pointing of the French government. According to Ghosn, the organizers of this conspiracy are Toyota Zhenghe, a member of Nissan's board of directors, the prosecutor of the Tokyo District Prosecutor's Office, and the law firm appointed by Nissan.

After the press conference, the mystery of the whole thing was not really solved. Later, while waiting for Ghosn, the Lebanese authorities issued a restraining order against Ghosn, forbidding Ghosn from leaving Lebanon, and announced that Japanese officials had been asked to provide detailed documents of Ghosn's case to determine whether further charges would be brought against Ghosn. This move once again made Ghosn the focus of discussion.

From the outside world, this seemingly full of "grievances and sadness" conference is actually the beginning of Ghosn's "Phoenix of Lebanon" unwilling to be "burnt".

At present, Ghosn has filed a lawsuit in France, demanding that Renault Group pay its retirement compensation of nearly 250,000 euros (about 1.9 1.000 yuan), and pay its annual pension of about 770,000 euros (about 5.89 million yuan) and unapproved performance pay. Ghosn's move is obviously to make up for the economic losses he suffered after his previous arrest.

According to the French newspaper le figaro and Parisian, Ghosn claimed that "I didn't resign from Renault voluntarily, and I resigned from Renault's leadership position in order to make the group run normally." In response, Renault responded that "Ghosn just wants money, which is really too much."

Behind the Ghosn incident, the stable relationship of Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi alliance became a victim. Today, the relationship between Ghosn and Nissan-Renault-Mitsubishi Alliance has developed from "farmers and snakes" to "fighting between snipes and mussels". Among them, Ghosn is both a rescuer and a fugitive.

"The CEO must have the talent of a gambler," Ghosn once said in his first autobiography, Extreme Control: Nissan's "Renaissance". Now, this out-and-out "gambler" is fighting for greater interests for himself.

(Ghosn attends Nissan activities/Nissan official micro)

0 1? Savior and the Rebirth of Three Automobile Enterprises

Ghosn was born in Brazil and came from a Lebanese immigrant family. Because his father is Lebanese and his mother is French, Ghosn has three nationalities: Brazil, Lebanon and France. Ghosn, who is proficient in English, French, Latin and Arabic, vividly explains the shrewdness, determination and profitability of businessmen.

Ghosn's ability first appeared in Michelin, Europe's largest automobile tire manufacturer. 1978 In March, 24-year-old Ghosn joined Michelin Tire Company. 1 1 years later, Ghosn became the CEO of Michelin Tire in North America with his long-term efforts and completed the expansion of Michelin in North America. There, Ghosn won the honor of "cost killer".

"If I can't climb higher, will I be happy to keep this position forever? I'm not sure. " At this point, Ghosn realized that he could not stop at prosperity. Therefore, in 1996, Ghosn, who thought that "cars are more attractive than tires", chose to jump to Renault, a French automobile manufacturer, and became the vice president of Renault Automobile Company, responsible for supervising manufacturing, procurement and research and development.

(Renault Auto/Renault official website)

"Reducing costs" is a common method used by Ghosn, a gambler. In the second year of joining Renault, Ghosn announced the "20 billion francs cost reduction plan", requiring Renault to cut costs by 20 billion francs in three years. At the end of 1998, under Ghosn's leadership, Renault's profit tripled year-on-year.

Then I told Ghosn more new stories. "Ghosn spent three years bringing a huge company that was completely in despair back to life and helping the Japanese economy that had been in recession for decades to rekindle hope. In the past 150 years of history, only three people have had such a subversive influence on Japanese society: 1853 American brigadier general Matthew Perry, 1946 douglas macarthur, and today's carlos ghosn. " Japan's Yomiuri Shimbun once commented on Ghosn. This "huge company" is Nissan.

During the period of 1999, Nissan suffered a serious debt crisis. In addition to the decline in performance for 26 consecutive years, Nissan is also burdened with a huge debt of 2.4 trillion yen (about RMB 65.438+0502 billion) and is on the verge of bankruptcy. At that time, Nissan, which was looking for the "white knight" everywhere, was rejected by Ford and Daimler. In the end, Renault spent $5.4 billion to acquire a 36.8% stake in Nissan.

Why can Nissan, which is on the verge of bankruptcy, successfully attract Renault's attention? In fact, in addition to the promotion of the business department and Japan, Nissan's own global industrial layout and research and development technology are also quite attractive. In addition, because Renault focuses on the market layout of Europe, South America and North Africa, Nissan, which focuses on markets such as Asia and Australia, can complement the market layout of the two companies.

It is worth mentioning that in this acquisition, Renault only acquired the shares of Nissan, not its debt. This makes Renault and Nissan relatively independent in business operation and financial management.

After Renault completed the equity acquisition of Nissan, "Savior" Ghosn took over Nissan and became CEO. After entering Nissan, Ghosn rescued this bankrupt enterprise from the brink of life and death through a series of reforms. According to media statistics, through the "Nissan Revitalization Plan", in terms of management, Nissan Motor Co., Ltd. closed five factories in three years and laid off 265,438+10,000 people, which broke through the shortcomings of Japanese enterprises in pursuing "business scale growth", thus reducing sales and management costs by 20%; In the supply chain, Ghosn reduced the number of parts suppliers with a daily output of 65,438+0,300 to more than 600, which improved the situation that thousands of suppliers were allowed to drive up prices and be trampled upon by others.

In addition, Ghosn abandoned the management rules and culture such as "lifelong employment" that Nissan used to follow, re-formulated the salary plan and incentive policy, and announced that the company would assess employees with strict financial objectives. However, Ghosn's move caused many Japanese employees to go bankrupt or even commit suicide. Some Japanese media once commented: "Ghosn's success is the ruin of tens of thousands of ordinary Japanese families."

Under Ghosn's series of drastic reforms, Nissan finally ushered in a "new life". Data show that in fiscal year 2000, Nissan made a profit of $2.7 billion; In fiscal year 20001,the company turned losses into profits, and its comprehensive operating profit rose to $3.92 billion.

In order to strengthen the alliance relationship between the two parties, Nissan purchased a 0/5% stake in Renault/Kloc-0 in 200/year. At this point, Renault and Nissan achieved cross-shareholding and formed the Renault-Nissan Alliance. Four years later, Nissan achieved the goal of annual sales of 6.5438+0 million vehicles. Also in this year, Ghosn became the ninth CEO of Renault Automobile Company. As a result, Ghosn became the dual CEO of Renault and Nissan at the same time.

Besides Nissan, Ghosn also saved Mitsubishi Motors. When Mitsubishi Motors was caught in scandals such as fuel consumption fraud, the market sales plummeted, and the company faced huge claims and was on the verge of bankruptcy, "Savior" Ghosn appeared again. 20 16, 10, Nissan Motor Co., Ltd. acquired 34% shares of Mitsubishi Motors for 237.35 billion yen (about RMB148.8 billion yuan), and Ghosn became the chairman of Mitsubishi Motors.

At the same time, Nissan-Renault-Mitsubishi Alliance was established, becoming the fourth largest automobile group in the world that year, and Ghosn became the chairman of the automobile alliance. In just one year, in 20 17 years, Nissan-Renault-Mitsubishi Alliance surpassed Toyota and Volkswagen in sales of 10608300 vehicles and quickly became the largest automobile group in the world.

If it weren't for Nissan's tip-off, perhaps only the story about "Savior" would be remembered about Ghosn.

02? Who burnt the "Phoenix of Lebanon"?

For Ghosn, the battle of Nissan can be described as "success is also Nissan, and failure is also Nissan". Ghosn's hand-picked Nissan helmsman Hiroyuki Nishikawa personally sent Ghosn to prison. In Ghosn's words, the arrest was "Pearl Harbor Incident".

On October 2018165438+1October 19, Ghosn, then chairman of Nissan-Renault-Mitsubishi Alliance, flew from Lebanon to Japan as usual on an alliance business jet with the tail number "NI55AN". On this day, he will have dinner with his daughter in Tokyo, and plans to chair the board meeting the next day. Without warning, Ghosn was greeted by Japanese prosecutors when the plane landed at Haneda Airport in Tokyo, Japan.

Caught off guard, Ghosn was arrested by the Special Search Department of Tokyo District Prosecutor's Office for "financial misconduct". According to Japanese prosecutors, during the period from 20 10 to 20 14, Ghosn's actual income was about 9.9 billion yen (about RMB 62 10 million), but actually it was only about 4.9 billion yen (about RMB 307 million).

Japanese prosecutors believe that Ghosn's income of about 5 billion yen has not been made public and has not been taxed, which violates Japan's Financial Commodities Trading Law and belongs to the act of "falsely recording securities reports".

Subsequently, Nishikawa Hiroshi confirmed at the press conference that Ghosn had three illegal acts: underreporting the amount of remuneration, using investment funds for private purposes, and using funds for private purposes; In the announcement, the board of directors agreed to dismiss Ghosn as chairman and representative director of Nissan.

The "private purpose" referred to by Hirohito Nishikawa was mentioned in the previous allegations of Japanese prosecutors. Japanese prosecutors claimed that Ghosn's wife, Carol Nahas, had private houses in France, Tokyo, Lebanon and Brazil. Among them, the house in Lebanon was purchased by a subsidiary of Nissan. To this end, Ghosn misappropriated about 500 million yen every day. In addition, since 2002, Ghosn has paid $6,543,800 (about RMB690,000) in consulting fees for his sister every year. Not only that, Ghosn's personal stock loss of nearly 4 billion yen (about 250 million yuan) was also filled by Nissan.

(Former Chairman of Nissan Motor carlos ghosn/Bloomberg)

In view of the above allegations, that is, concealing huge personal income, misappropriating company funds and transferring personal investment losses to the company, it is suspected of violating the Financial Commodities Trading Law and the Company Law. At the previous press conference, Ghosn responded.

Regarding the main crime of "concealing income", Ghosn said: "If foreign directors want to pay their remuneration through exchange rate contracts, everyone will vote for this resolution, which will neither bring additional costs nor losses to the company. We had a contract at the time. "

When talking about the accusation of "CEO reserve expenditure", Ghosn responded that "CEO reserve expenditure has a corresponding process, which needs to be signed by the legal department, the prosecutor and the chief operating officer, and finally confirmed by me. Every payment of CEO's reserve fund should follow this process. I am not the only one who signed it. "

However, behind Ghosn's seemingly meticulous response, there are some "loopholes" that make the outside world suspicious.

Among them, talking about the accusation of "transferring money to my sister", although Ghosn bluntly said, "I didn't notice it, and I didn't know I was signing this document." However, in Ghosn's remarks, he was quite clear about the ins and outs of this account: "Because my sister was the chairman of the Chamber of Commerce in Rio de Janeiro, and Nissan chose a place to build a new factory in Rio de Janeiro, I paid my sister a thank-you fee." Between words, Ghosn obviously has some contradictions. From this perspective, Ghosn is not entirely a victim.

On the one hand, Ghosn obviously has some "financial misconduct", but it has also become a weapon of Nissan's "conspiracy amplification theory" to "crush" Ghosn; On the other hand, Nishikawa Hiroshi may be able to give an "answer" to the reasons for the above complaints.

"Ghosn engaged in personal dictatorship, built Nissan Motor Company into Ghosn Kingdom, and denied and obliterated Nissan's tradition and dignity." Nishikawa Hirohito said at a previous press conference. Behind Ghosn's "heroic ending", Nissan, regarded by the Japanese as "the pride of the automobile industry", was touched.

(Nissan Bluebird/Nissan Official)

Ghosn was arrested, and this series of things seemed to happen without warning.

As early as before, Hirohito Nishikawa and Ghosn publicly reprimanded each other many times, which has already laid the groundwork for their discord. Within Nissan, Ghosn's image as a "savior" once changed: some people think that "Ghosn has changed". Especially when managing Renault and Nissan at the same time, the impression of "centralization" has been formed.

In the later management style, Ghosn's style became more and more obvious. The British "Financial Times" once reported that "few people in enterprises will publicly criticize Ghosn because people are worried about retaliation for inconsistent corporate culture concepts." All the changes were foreshadowed from this moment, and now it has become the talk of the whole thing.

"The phoenix in Lebanon will not be scorched by the Japanese sun." 20 18 12, Lebanese Interior Minister Machinok said after Ghosn was arrested. Although Ghosn has brought hope to Japanese industry, Ghosn is not Japanese after all.

03? Storm triangle alliance

After Ghosn was arrested, the tension between Nissan and Renault continued to deteriorate. According to Ghosn, after his arrest, the Nissan-Renault-Mitsubishi Alliance lost 20 million euros a day and accumulated 5 billion euros. Behind this "Lebanese Phoenix" is a "Rashomon" involving interest disputes.

After Ghosn was arrested and charged in Japan, Renault fired him. Subsequently, Mitsubishi Motors also fired Ghosn, saying that "Ghosn violated his promise at Nissan and it is difficult to continue to serve."

Ghosn, who became "kicked out", seems quite unwilling. "They said,' Turn Ghosn's time around'. Now it seems that I have indeed become a thing of the past, because this alliance has completely disintegrated and there will be no new things. " Ghosn said.

Today, the relationship between Nissan-Renault-Mitsubishi Alliance is quite delicate and sensitive. According to the information of Tokyo Stock Exchange, at present, in the Nissan-Renault-Mitsubishi alliance, Renault holds 43.4% of Nissan's shares and becomes the largest shareholder with voting rights. At the same time, Nissan and the French government each hold 0/5% shares of Renault/KLOC, becoming its major shareholders. However, Nissan has no right to vote. In addition, Nissan also holds a 34% stake in Mitsubishi Motors and becomes its major shareholder.

In the Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi alliance, Mitsubishi is in a relatively weak position because of its small size and poor performance. Therefore, the real game of this alliance lies in Renault and Nissan.

However, Nissan and Renault do not seem to intend to dissolve this alliance. On June 4th, local time 65438+ 10/kloc-0, Nissan issued a statement saying that "it will never consider dissolving the alliance." Nissan said in a statement that "the alliance is the source of Nissan's competitiveness, and sustainable and profitable growth can be achieved through the alliance. In the future, Nissan will continue to seek a win-win situation for all alliance members. " In addition, Jean dominic sena, chairman of Renault, also said in an interview with Belgian newspaper Echo that "Nissan-Renault-Mitsubishi alliance is solid and firm, and it is impossible to die."

Today, Nissan has fallen into internal and external troubles. The financial report shows that in fiscal year 20 18, Nissan's global sales volume was 5510.6 million units, down 4.4% year-on-year. In addition, Nissan predicted that the annual net profit in fiscal year 20 19 would be reduced by 47% to170 billion yen, and the global output would be reduced by 15%, which would be the biggest production reduction in Nissan 10 years. Of course, this is also closely related to the harsh environment of the global automobile market.

Today's Nissan is facing the embarrassing situation of reversing the sharp decline in the profits of its parent company and dealing with the new cross-shareholding problem with Renault. This is a big test for Uchida. According to the latest news, Reuters quoted three people familiar with the matter as saying that Nissan Motor Co., Ltd. has strengthened a special working group composed of high-level officials to cope with the fierce attack brought by former chairman Ghosn's escape from Tokyo.

When a reporter at the scene asked, "Can the alliance between Nissan and Renault survive without you?" Ghosn replied: "Yes, but the alliance between the two sides must have some rules. If the two sides do not reach an agreement, it is impossible to continue. "

Behind this "Rashomon" with tangled interests is actually a "dispute between France and Japan".

As one of the typical representatives of French state-owned enterprises, the French government still holds 15% of the shares and becomes Renault's largest shareholder, although Renault has gone through several privatization processes. This also makes Ghosn inextricably linked with French President Emmanuel Macron.

From the perspective of Nissan, for its own benefit, Japan obviously does not want to be in a "passive" state controlled by others for a long time. In addition, the Japanese side does not want Ghosn, who is in charge of Renault and Nissan at the same time, to bring technology and R&D achievements directly back to France. The fundamental purpose of Japan's unwillingness to let go is to improve Ghosn's independent management right in the triangle alliance by "pushing him off the altar"; France's intention is even more obvious-to take the initiative of the triangular alliance.

Ghosn, who now appears as a "fugitive", has been difficult to reproduce the "highlight moment" of the automobile industry in the short term. And this "dispute between France and Japan" may eventually turn into a deadlock without victory.

Editor: Yang Yaru

This article comes from car home, the author of the car manufacturer, and does not represent car home's position.