Renault is certain that it’s alliance partner – Nissan, newly instituted board will work to reinforce their partnership as it struggles to move past the Carlos Ghosn scandal, Renault Chairman Jean-Dominique Senard said on Thursday.
Nissan shareholders last month approved the appointment of a new board at the Japanese automaker with a more international profile as well as Senard and his Renault CEO Thierry Bollore.
“There is a change,” Senard told reporters in a briefing at Renault headquarters. “We have a new board that is conscious of its fiduciary duty. Let that board work.”
Speaking to the Anglo-American Press Association of Paris, Senard expressed confidence that Nissan directors would see alliance cooperation as essential in the face of challenges facing the auto industry. “Necessity sometimes helps,” he said.
Senard, appointed in January to replace an absent Ghosn, now awaiting trial in Japan on financial misconduct charges he denies.
Alliance relations, already strained by Ghosn’s arrest, were further tested by Senard’s failed attempts first to secure a full merger with Nissan and later to combine Renault with Fiat Chrysler Automobiles, a move thwarted by the French state.
Renault currently owns 43.4 per cent of Nissan, whose 15 per cent reciprocal stake in its French parent carries no voting rights.
While insisting the focus now was on alliance operations, Senard stopped short of ruling out either a full Renault-Nissan merger or a revival of deal talks with FCA.
“I’m not pushing anything,” Senard said but added: “If the board is conscious about its role, it will have to consider all the options.”
Confronted with trade risks and the investment demands of electrification and autonomous driving, “anything that can bring synergies and cash flow is good”, he said.
