Nissan CEO Backs Renault Alliance for Now

Nissan Motor Co. CEO Hiroto Saikawa says he favors stabilizing rather than revamping the company’s alliance with Renault and Mitsubishi Motors while the fate of former Chairman Carlos Ghosn is unclear.

The future of the 20-year-old alliance has become increasingly unclouded following Ghosn’s arrest in mid-November. At the time, he was chairman of all three companies and the alliance itself. He has since been dismissed at Nissan and MMC and had his duties reassigned at Renault.

Saikawa renewed a request that Renault’s legal department share with the French carmaker’s board of directors the full details of Nissan’s investigation into claimed financial wrongdoing by Ghosn. Nissan delivered a detailed report to the attorneys more than a month ago, but they forwarded only a summary to the board.

Saikawa tells France’s Les Echos that “the time has not come” to consider restructuring the partnership, even though Nissan has complained for more than a year about Renault’s lopsided control over the alliance. Renault owns a 44% voting stake in Nissan, who holds a nonvoting 15% share of Renault.

Saikawa insists that none of the three carmakers wants to “do without” the partnership. But he also says Nissan has no interest in fully merging the companies. Earlier reports said Ghosn and Renault were working on just such a plan at the time of his arrest.