8chan/8kun QResearch Posts (3)
#7612619 at 2019-12-24 23:31:53 (UTC+1)
Q Research General #9739: Merry Christmas To All US Service Members Edition
Nissan Exec in Charge of Turnaround Departs After Two Weeks on the Job
Jun Seki is a 30-year veteran of Nissan, but he's bailing on the vice-COO position after just a fortnight.
When someone takes a job and then totally bails on it two weeks later, it can mean at least one of a few things. If the job involves delivering pizzas or working a cash register, then it likely means that said employee is a lazy teen. If that job is something more involved, like say, Vice-Chief Operating Officer for a large Japanese carmaker, then it says something else entirely.
Unfortunately for Nissan, it's going through the latter of those two scenarios right now as Jun Seki – a man who was to be instrumental in the troubled company's turnaround – announced his departure from Nissan for Nidec, according to a report published Tuesday by Reuters.
He's been with Nissan for 30 years, so why would he leave now? Well, even on the surface, Nissan has a long and challenging road ahead of it after years of declining profits and a stagnating product line that it's working feverishly to revamp. Add in the sizable poop sandwich left by both Carlos Ghosn and Hiroto Saikawa, and we can see why Seki would seek greener pastures.
However, when asked during a recent interview, he gave different reasons for his departure: "I love Nissan and I feel bad about leaving the turnaround work unfinished, but I am 58 years old, and this is an offer I could not refuse. It's probably my last chance to lead a company too."
So what exactly does Nidec do? It's a supplier to the automotive industry as well as the electronics and appliance industries. Notably, Nidec has pretty much locked up the market on the itty-bitty electric motors that spin the platters inside of traditional hard drives.
Where will this leave Nissan? Well, that's an excellent question that Nissan's board is probably feverishly asking itself right now.
Nissan didn't immediately respond to Roadshow's request for comment.
https://www.cnet.com/roadshow/news/nissan-exec-Jun-Seki-departs-two-weeks/
#7608481 at 2019-12-24 13:50:48 (UTC+1)
Q Research General #9734: Christmas Eve Morning 2020 Edition
Nissan top executive Seki to resign in blow to turnaround plan
The executive tasked with leading a recovery at Nissan Motor Co Ltd said he had decided to resign just weeks into his new job, a move that could disrupt the automaker's push to turn the corner on scandal and slumping sales. Jun Seki, Nissan's vice chief operating officer and a former contender for chief executive, told Reuters he was leaving to become the president of Nidec Corp, a Kyoto-based manufacturer of automotive components and precision motors.
He will likely depart in January after three decades at Nissan, including a stint heading its China business. "I love Nissan and I feel bad about leaving the turnaround work unfinished, but I am 58 years old, and this is an offer I could not refuse. It's probably my last chance to lead a company too," he said in a brief interview. "It's not about money. In fact, I will take a financial hit since Nissan pays us well," Seki said. He declined to elaborate further.
Nissan and Nidec declined to comment.
Seeking to roll back some of the costly expansion under ousted chairman Carlos Ghosn, Nissan has embarked on wide-ranging turnaround plan. That plan, which began in April, is now on track to generate a cumulative few hundred billion yen in cost cuts and operational efficiency gains by the year to March 2022, according to two Nissan sources who spoke on condition of anonymity. One hundred billion yen is roughly equal to $915 million.
Adding to concerns about disruption among Nissan's top management, the sources said that Seki, Chief Operating Officer Ashwani Gupta and Chief Executive Makoto Uchida have so far failed to gel as a team after being named to their posts in October. They officially took over on Dec. 1. "There was no instant, cohesive chemistry achieved by those appointments," one of the sources said.
Gupta and Uchida were not immediately available for comment.
Seki's resignation could further complicate Nissan's relationship with top shareholder Renault SA. Seki recently worked in Paris for a year and was seen as relatively close to the French automaker.
Asked if he was leaving Nissan because he was passed over for the role of chief executive, Seki said that was not the case but did not elaborate. He and Uchida, most recently the head of the China business, had been seen as top contenders for the CEO job. Reuters reported in September that Uchida was seen as more favored by Renault. Before being named vice-COO, Seki was a senior vice-president charged with leading the turnaround.
Nissan has been profoundly shaken over the last year, first with the downfall of long-term leader Ghosn, who is now awaiting trial on allegations of financial misconduct that he has denied. Former Chief Executive Hiroto Saikawa then left in September.
One of the sources said Seki was contacted by a headhunter about a job at Nidec in April, after he returned from a year working in Paris. Nidec's 75-year-old chairman, the brash and confident Shigenobu Nagamori, has been searching for an eventual successor to lead and expand its business.
Nidec, which sees electric vehicles as a key driver of growth, has a 40% global market share in automotive electric steering motors and has said it wants to boost its share in electric vehicle propulsion motors. After April, Seki had no additional contact with Nidec until the recruiter called him again on Oct. 8 when Nissan announced the new management team, including Uchida as CEO.
After that second call, Seki agreed to meet Nagamori - to turn down the offer, the source said. "Nagamori talked Seki into accepting his offer in the end," the source said.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-nissan-executives/nissan-top-executive-Seki-to-resign-in-blow-to-turnaround-plan-idUSKBN1YS0R8
#6484682 at 2019-05-13 02:49:32 (UTC+1)
Q Research General #8292: TRUTH TO LIGHT Edition
Carlos Ghosn's successor, Hiroto Saikawa, under siege from within as Nissan profit sinks
Carlos Ghosn's arrest threw Nissan Motor Co. into a corporate tailspin with allegations of self-dealing, profligate spending and filing false statements. Now the automaker's profits are falling off a cliff, and successor Hiroto Saikawa may go down with them.
Troubled by slumping U.S. sales, aging models and a product cycle that's out of sync, the Yokohama-based company is on track to announce on Tuesday its lowest annual operating profit in a decade, raising the possibility of a dividend cut. The outlook for the current fiscal year to March 2020 probably won't be any more promising.
Chief Executive Officer Saikawa has yet to announce a turnaround plan since the arrest of former Chairman Ghosn in November, and people familiar with the matter say there's internal strife over whether he's the right executive to fix Nissan. Alliance partner Renault SA may not look too favorably on Saikawa's reappointment if he continues to oppose a merger said to be backed by its own Chairman Jean-Dominique Senard, who is also a Nissan director.
In addition, alliance partner said it would block Saikawa's reappointment if he didn't agree to a merger - a request made by Renault's new chairman that Saikawa batted away, the Yomiuri newspaper reported last month.
"A new management team and strategy may be the answer," said Michael Dean, a Bloomberg Intelligence analyst.
"We do not comment on rumors or speculation," said Nicholas Maxfield, a Nissan spokesman. "The company's focus is on stabilizing operations and strengthening its management structure, while addressing the weaknesses in governance that enabled this misconduct."
The surprise jailing of Ghosn, who led both carmakers for two decades, exposed rifts over control and decision-making. Since then, Ghosn was released and detained once again. Currently out on bail, Ghosn has denied all charges against him, saying his arrest was due to a "dirty game" played by some Nissan executives. He is now preparing for his trial, which may start later this year or next year.
A pending litmus test for Saikawa's job security will come next month, when Nissan's directors are set to formally adopt new corporate governance rules that include creating a more independent board. In an extraordinary shareholders' meeting held last month to remove Ghosn from the board, Saikawa was peppered with questions as to why he wasn't stepping down to take responsibility for Nissan's poor governance.
Saikawa said there are many ways to take responsibility and he believed the right thing for him to do now is to help Nissan rebuild, signaling his intention to stay on. Even so, Saikawa needs Renault's vote from its 43 percent stake to back his reappointment, especially given that roughly half of minority shareholders have voted against his appointment since 2017.
While the French automaker agreed in 2015 not to interfere in the appointment of top Nissan managers, Nissan's financial weakness could give Renault an opening to push harder for a merger.
The list of potential replacements include Chief Operating Officer Yasuhiro Yamauchi, who sits on the board of Renault. His recent promotion preserves management ties between the automakers, who along with Mitsubishi Motors Corp. form the world's biggest car alliance.
A recent management shuffle also put the spotlight on executives who may also be in a position to lead the company. Hideyuki Sakamoto, in charge of manufacturing and supply-chain management, joined Nissan in 1980 as an engineer and has worked around the world, including the Nissan Technical Center in North America, Nissan's largest affiliate supplier in Japan and Renault in Brazil. Jun Seki, formerly Nissan's China chief, is now senior vice president overseeing "performance recovery."
"Nissan clearly had very bad corporate governance and an atmosphere where few felt they could question Mr. Ghosn," said Janet Lewis, an analyst at Macquarie Capital Securities (Japan) Ltd. "His departure will enable them to reboot, but it will take time to put a strong management team in place."
https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2019/05/12/business/corporate-business/carlos-ghosns-successor-hiroto-saikawa-siege-within-nissan-profit-sinks/
Saikawa-san, take the initiative and build a small pickup truck FFS and export in here, you would clean up.