Nissan would have difficulties, according to Ghosn, who did not specify why.
TOKYO — Before he skipped bail and departed Japan, Carlos Ghosn spoke to a lawyer for more than 10 hours, predicting that Nissan would go bankrupt in two to three years.
The assertion was made by Nobuo Gohara, a former prosecutor and outspoken opponent of the Japanese legal system, who also claims that the former chairman and CEO of Nissan and Renault made the prediction last year during a series of meetings concerning his detention and prosecution.
Gohara, who spoke with the now-fugitive CEO, told reporters at a news conference on Wednesday in Tokyo that Nissan will likely go bankrupt within two to three years. According to the attorney, Ghosn did not provide specific justifications for why Nissan would face issues.
The corporation has cut its profit and sales projections for the fiscal year ending March 31 and announced it will lay off 12,500 people worldwide as a result of weakening auto sales in China and Europe.
For a book he intended to publish before the commencement of Ghosn’s trial, which is no longer expected to happen, Gohara claimed he met with and interviewed the former executive five times over the course of two months, immediately before the executive disappeared.
The lawyer said that Ghosn had given him authorization to reveal specifics of their conversations.
Gohara frequently addresses concerns pertaining to the Japanese legal system in his blog and on television. Since his detention, Ghosn has also decried Japan’s “hostage justice” system and the nation’s recent use of plea bargaining.
Speaking earlier this month from Beirut, the 65-year-old Ghosn claimed that he left Japan because he no longer believed he would receive a swift and fair trial.
The former executive was accused of financial malfeasance on a number of counts, including underreporting his income and betraying trust. Japanese prosecutors charged him with shifting personal trading losses to Nissan and utilizing company assets for his and his family’s personal gains in the latter cases.
Ghosn believed he was the target of a plot to kill him because he was working on the merger of alliance partner Nissan and Nissan. The third member is Mitsubishi Motors.
Gohara stated in Tokyo that “Nissan and prosecutors collaborated to pursue a criminal case against Ghosn.”
Following his arrest on the same day as Ghosn, Greg Kelly, a former official in the Nissan CEO’s office, is now most likely to be charged with financial wrongdoing alone. Kelly has a fair chance of establishing his innocence, according to Gohara “since Kelly and Ghosn are dealing with the same problems. If Kelly is found not guilty, Ghosn will follow suit.”
Ghosn contemplated going to court in a nation where prosecutors almost never lose, having already spent a total of nearly 130 days behind bars in a Tokyo jail. Last year, he was released on bail with stringent restrictions, including being unable to contact his wife and only being permitted to use a computer at his attorney’s office.
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According to former prosecutor Gohara, Ghosn foresaw Nissan’s insolvency by 2022.
Before the auto CEO skipped bail and departed Japan, Carlos Ghosn spoke to a defense attorney for more than 10 hours. He predicted that Nissan Motor Co. will go bankrupt within two to three years.
According to Nobuo Gohara, a former prosecutor and outspoken critic of the Japanese legal system, the former chairman and chief executive officer of Nissan Motor Co. and Renault SA made the forecast last year during a series of meetings concerning his detention and prosecution.
Nissan will likely go bankrupt in two to three years, Carlos Ghosn informed his attorney.
Carlos Ghosn might be accused of many things, but one of them isn’t lacking management experience in the auto industry.
He not only succeeded in the very difficult task of reversing Nissan’s fortunes, but he also made the Renault-Nissan Alliance function and even draw Mitsubishi into its sphere of influence. Many people think that his efforts to integrate Renault and Nissan more closely ultimately contributed to his downfall.
It’s likely that we’ll find out if that was the case in the upcoming years, but the man definitely knew what he was doing. We find it really intriguing that Ghosn predicted that the Japanese automaker will fail within two or three years because of this.
Ghosn’s lawyer in Japan, Nobuo Gohara, reportedly claimed the former CEO told him specifically so during more than 10 hours of interviews last year, just before skipping bail and making an impressive escape from Japan, according to Bloomberg.
Gohara, a former prosecutor and outspoken critic of Japan’s legal system, claimed, “He warned me that Nissan will definitely go bankrupt within two to three years.” Ghosn is also a prominent critic of Japan’s legal system. On Wednesday, the lawyer described his chats with Nissan’s previous boss at a news conference in Tokyo. Gohara stated that Ghosn did not elaborate on his dire forecast for Nissan.
The lawyer added that he met and spoke with Ghosn five times in only two months for a book he intended to release just before the former executive’s trial got underway. Gohara claimed that he last saw Ghosn two days before his flight to Beirut and that the former CEO had given him permission to share the specifics of their conversations.
Given that he is at odds with the automaker, which has accused him of several wrongdoings, it is obvious that Ghosn’s prediction that Nissan will go bankrupt should be treated with skepticism. However, the company is actually experiencing a decline in automobile sales, particularly in China and Europe. Nissan announced that it would reduce 12,500 positions globally and lowered its profit and sales projections for the current fiscal year.
By 2022, according to former CEO Carlos Ghosn, Nissan will be bankrupt.
Ex-Nissan Chairman, CEO, wanted man, and automotive Houdini Carlos Ghosn claims the company will go bankrupt by 2022—not that he has any ulterior motives or anything. While under Japanese house arrest, he spoke with defense lawyer Nobuo Gohara for ten hours during which he disclosed this and other information. The interviews, according to Bloomberg, were conducted in 2019. Of course, after his spectacular escape from detention in Japan, he is now in Beirut, Lebanon.
Undoubtedly, Nissan is currently in a terrible situation. 12,000 jobs are being eliminated as we speak. Additionally, it has canceled all non-essential travel for this month and furloughed all employees for two days. All of this is an effort to stop the bleeding caused by low sales and earnings.
The COO of Nissan claims that the company is on track to achieve its post-Ghosn turnaround goals a year early.
- Nissan is moving forward after the scandal-plagued departure of former CEO and now wanted international fugitive Carlos Ghosn by making significant progress on a global restructuring plan.
- The Japanese manufacturer is on track to accomplish the goals outlined in its “Nissan Next” turnaround plan one year earlier than the target date of March 2024.
- Following nearly a decade of leadership by Ghosn, Nissan Next is a combination of cost-cutting, product investment, and culture reform.
On a prototype of its new all-electric Ariya crossover, Nissan has lighted its logo. The vehicle’s grille reflects Nissan’s Z Proto sports car, while an updated Nissan Pathfinder SUV is seen in the distance.
As it moves past Carlos Ghosn’s scandal-plagued departure, Nissan Motor is making considerable strides in a global restructuring plan to downsize operations and return to profitability.
In a video interview from Nissan’s headquarters in Yokohama, Japan, Gupta, who is in charge of the transformation, said: “Despite the headwinds, we have pulled ahead the recovery by one year.” We are far ahead of schedule compared to what we predicted, which enabled us to weather the pandemic’s headwinds in 2020.
Following almost 20 years under Ghosn, who fled Japan to Lebanon in December 2019 while awaiting trial on allegations of financial wrongdoing, Nissan Next is a blend of cost-cutting, product investment, and culture transformation. Nissan CEO Makoto Uchida outlined the recovery plan as a road map to long-term profitability and “competition for the next ten years.”
The company’s operations are being significantly scaled back in order to place more of an emphasis on higher profits than on Ghosn’s goals of sales volume and growth. Nissan still has a ways to go in terms of profitability, but according to Gupta, there are some encouraging indicators.
Nissan’s 2020 fiscal year, which ends in March, saw a loss of 367.7 trillion Japanese yen ($3.4 billion) through the first three quarters. However, it exceeded its initial objective by 100 billion Japanese yen ($921 million) in the third quarter, producing an operating profit of 27.1 billion Japanese yen ($250 million). Additionally, compared to its earlier plan of 300 billion Japanese yen ($2.8 billion), it has reduced fixed costs by 330 billion Japanese yen ($3 billion).
According to Gupta, cutting fixed costs by closing operations, leaving markets like South Korea, and lowering plant shifts internationally allowed the corporation to arrive ahead of schedule. Other goals of the transformation plan include a 20% reduction in the world’s manufacturing capacity, a tripling of operating profit margin to 5%, and a marginal increase in worldwide market share from 5.8% to 6%.
Analysts are cautiously optimistic that Nissan can turn things around based on the early findings. According to FactSet, the price of Nissan shares listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange has increased by nearly 51% in the past year.
Following the company’s third quarter earnings, Morgan Stanley analyst Kota Mineshima wrote in a letter to investors, “Our impression is generally one of progress.”
Has Nissan come close to bankruptcy?
In 1998, Nissan had completely lost its path and was on the edge of bankruptcy. Since ditching the Datsun moniker, the company has made vain attempts to compete in high-end market segments that were becoming more and more expensive to operate in and even more expensive to succeed in.
Is Nissan a struggling business?
It is widely known that Nissan is having problems. It is still battling to reclaim some of its former glory from the time when vehicles like the ZX, Sentra, and GT-R were class leaders, a full year after realizing its predicament. Although it continues to lose a lot of money, it has made substantial improvements. Now, Nissan’s brand-new COO explains how Nissan bungled it.
Nissan’s operating losses totaled $400 million in 2019. Additionally, Carlos Ghosn, the company’s CEO, was detained on suspicion of fraud and other wrongdoings. Nissan’s fortunes also began to quickly decline around that period.
Is Nissan regaining its footing?
Despite the fact that two-seat sports cars aren’t particularly popular, the new Nissan Z is one of the most significant vehicles in the automaker’s recent history since even a car firm requires a soul.
Nissan has experienced some difficult times during the last four to five years. Carlos Ghosn, the former CEO of Nissan, was detained in 2018. An outdated product lineup that was mostly caused by Ghosn’s focus on fleet sales rather than consumer excitement had been hurting the company’s operations. Alfonso Albaisa, the company’s chief designer, expressed his unhappiness with the situation last year. Even Hiroto Saikawa, Nissan’s former CEO, was had to acknowledge in 2019 that the business had “reached rock bottom.”
However, Nissan has been making a comeback by introducing new automobiles like the Pathfinder and Rogue SUVs. The Z, with its emphasis on style and excitement, looks to serve as a sort of spiritual hub for that uprising. When the new Z was unveiled last year, Albaisa told me that designing this new vehicle, which has lines evocative of classic Nissan sports cars, was something that helped the team come together.
Recently, I had the opportunity to drive it on motorways and winding backroads for hundreds of miles. The new Z turned out to be an unexpectedly likeable long-term travel partner, offering genuine comfort during the tediously long stretches but thrill when the route called for it.
Why have Nissan’s sales decreased?
On Thursday, July 28, Nissan releases financial figures for the automaker’s first quarter of its fiscal year, covering the months of April to June 2022. Analysts anticipate a 70% decline in earnings on increasing revenue. China bears a large portion of the blame, as COVID lockdowns prevented production and sales.