Struggling Nissan is set to make a fresh start with a leadership change to replace CEO Makoto Uchida next month.
Nissan announced Tuesday that Chief Planning Officer Ivan Espinosa will be assuming the role starting in April in a bid to turn around the Yokohama-based automaker.
All eyes are on how the new Mexican chief will plot a rebound and whether he will revive the recently failed megamerger talks with Honda under Uchida's leadership.
In a news conference hastily arranged on Tuesday evening, Espinosa did not comment in depth on specific plans, saying that he was just informed of the appointment.
“I’m really excited to continue Uchida-san’s work to help Nissan shine again," Espinosa said. "I sincerely believe that Nissan has so much more potential than what we are seeing today.”
Yasushi Kimura, chairman of Nissan's board of directors, said Espinosa has built a global career after many years at Nissan, so he is the most suitable person to lead the company at this challenging time. Espinosa joined Nissan in 2003 and has been working on product strategy and planning.
Espinosa declined to comment when asked if he is considering resuming the merger negotiations with Honda.
The Financial Times reported last month that Honda would be open to renegotiation if Uchida steps down from the top post.
Nissan admits that it is looking for new allies to survive intensifying global competition.
"We are exploring new partnership opportunities from a broad range of viewpoints. Various options are being considered," Uchida told reporters during the Tuesday news conference.
Uchida recently sought a merger with Honda so that the two could combine forces to keep up with new technological trends, such as connected vehicles, autonomous cars and electric vehicles.
However, last month the two automakers gave up on the merger, which would have created the world’s No. 3 vehicle manufacturing group along with Nissan’s ally Mitsubishi Motors, just weeks after talks formally started.
Negotiations did not go well after Honda proposed to make Nissan a wholly owned subsidiary. Nissan rejected the proposal because it was unclear how much independence it would have, Uchida said last month.
The initial plan was to establish a holding company that would fully own both Honda and Nissan, but Honda thought it would be better for it to have more control in order to make speedy decisions on critical matters.
Given that Nissan has been slumping, the merger was widely seen as a rescue by Honda.
As for possible partnership scenarios, names other than Honda, such as Taiwan’s Hon Hai Precision Industry and Tesla, have been floated by the media. Tesla CEO Elon Musk has said it is “fake news.”
Speculation was running high in recent weeks that Uchida would be taking responsibility for the failure of the proposed merger with Honda, as well as poor earnings.
Uchida explained on Tuesday that he decided to step aside due to questions over his responsibility coming from both inside and outside the company.
“It is necessary to establish an environment where employees can work together as one to tackle challenges,” Uchida said.
“However, since I lost the trust of some of our employees ... I believe that the best course of action is to shift to a new management team and make a fresh start as soon as possible."
Uchida, 58, became Nissan CEO in 2019 and has led efforts to get the automaker back on its feet, but the initiatives have so far failed.
The company is expected to post an ¥80 billion ($536 million) loss for the fiscal year ending March. In the first half of this fiscal year, Nissan’s net profit fell about 90% mainly due to sluggish sales in North America and China while introducing a plan to cut 9,000 jobs.
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