Nissan’s chief financial officer is reportedly resigning, shortly after a report said the company has 12 or 14 months for survival if it does not find a new shareholder.
Bloomberg reports that Nissan CFO Stephen Ma will step down in the near future, according to an unnamed insider.
His departure comes after former Nissan COO Ashwani Gupta left in June 2023with reports subsequently emerging that the automaker had installed a camera system in his home in Tokyo.
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Mr. Ma was promoted to the role of CFO at the end of 2019. and has worked for Nissan – or its Chinese joint venture partner Dongfeng – since 1996, several years before the automaker entered its now 25-year alliance with French marque Renault.
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While the Renault-Nissan alliance has brought profitability to both carmakers, the Japanese brand has struggled since former chief executive Carlos Ghosn was arrested for allegedly embezzling corporate funds, a charge the fugitive has now denied.
Nissan’s financial woes have grown in recent months due to falling sales in its two biggest markets – the US and China – with a report by Financial Times last week claiming a senior official close to the automaker said: “We have 12 or 14 months to survive.”
“This is going to be difficult. And ultimately we need Japan and the US to generate money,” a senior official close to Nissan told The Financial Times.
A source close to Renault has reportedly told the publication that it would be willing to sell some of its shares to Honda.
Renault wants to further reduce its stake in Nissan – after reducing its stake from 43.4 percent to below 36 percent last year – leaving the Japanese brand to seek a long-term, stable shareholder such as a bank or insurance group to provide financial stability.
Nissan announced earlier this month that it plans to cut global production capacity by 20 percent and ax 9,000 jobs to “stabilize and right-size” the business after consolidated operating profit for the first half of Japan’s fiscal year 2024 fell 303.8 billion yen (~AU$3 billion) to 32.9 billion yen (~AU$334 million) .
The brand’s chief executive, Makoto Uchida, has announced that he will voluntarily give up 50 percent of his monthly compensation, while other members of the executive committee are also taking pay cuts.
Nissan shares have fallen 36 percent over the past 12 months, now the lowest since the COVID-19 pandemic closed borders around the world.
As reported last week, Nissan’s reliance on US sales is under threat after President-elect Donald Trump said he would impose 25% tariffs on imports from Canada and Mexico.
The latter is home to several of Nissan’s manufacturing plants, with more than 300,000 vehicles exported from Mexico to the US so far this year. It is the only country where Nissan production has increased year-on-year.
All three of Nissan’s most affordable vehicles sold in the U.S.—the Versa, Kicks, and Sentra—are made in Mexico.
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