Report: Nissan Partner Funded Ghosn Tech Fund

Funds from a Nissan Motor Co. distributor in Oman ended up backing a secret Silicon Valley investment fund set up by former Nissan CEO Carlos Ghosn, The Wall Street Journal says.

The newspaper’s investigation says the scheme is the target of the most serious criminal charge against Ghosn, who was arrested in Japan last November. Ghosn declares his innocence. His attorney blasts prosecutors for spreading “fabrications, falsehoods and misrepresentations.”

Prosecutors claim Ghosn arranged to have Nissan and alliance partner Renault SA pay a combined $43 million in incentives to the Oman distributor, Suhail Bahwan Automobiles, between 2012 and 2018.

The prosecutors allege that at least $10 million of those funds were part of transfers totaling $43.9 million between 2012 and 2018 from the distributorship to a Beirut-based company called Good Faith Investments.

Good Faith had been set up by Ghosn’s lawyer. The Journal says corporate documents in Lebanon show that nearly all shares in Good Faith were held by Divyendu Kumar, the director of the Oman distributorship. A source tells the newspaper that Kumar was Good Faith’s sole source of funds.

The report says Ghosn directed Good Faith between 2015 and 2018 to move $27 million of its resources to Shogun Investments, a Delaware company Ghosn set up primarily to invest in Silicon Valley tech startups. Good Faith also transferred $12 million to Beauty Yachts, a Virgin Islands-registered company that owns a 100-foot yacht used by the Ghosn family.

Finally, Shogun invested nearly $27 million in dozens of startups and investment products. The firm also made loans to Ghosn’s son Anthony to help fund his own startup.

Sources close to Ghosn tell the Journal that his personal investments were entirely separate from his management activities at Nissan and Renault. Prosecutors, says one source, are “trying to draw a connection that does not exist.”