TOKYO, May 16 (Xinhua) -- Nissan Motor Co. will keep its current CEO Hiroto Saikawa in his position amid criticism from some insiders and name CEO of its alliance partner Renault SA, Thierry Bollore, to its board, sources with knowledge of the matter said Thursday.
The management changes have been brought about by the arrest of former Nissan Chairman Carlos Ghosn for alleged financial misconduct last November and under the alliance's plans made last month to allow the alliance to cooperate more efficiently, effectively and on a consensual basis.
Nissan is eying a new board comprising 11 members, with six of them being outside directors, the sources said.
Bollore and Renault Chairman Jean-Dominique Senard will be on the new board, and along with Saikawa, who some insiders believe should have stepped down to take responsibility for Nissan's recent controversies, Nissan's Chief Operating Officer Yasuhiro Yamauchi, will also be a member. The reshuffled board is still pending the approval of Nissan shareholders at an annual regular meeting scheduled next month.
Underscoring Nissan and the alliance's plans to move past recent stumbling blocks, in March, Nissan, Renault and Mitsubishi Motors Corp. announced they planned to reorganizing their partnership following the arrest of Ghosn and make a new internal body to oversee their alliance.
They said at the time that a four-member committee would be at the helm of overseeing the newly-structured alliance, to be chaired by Renault's Senard and to include Saikawa, Mitsubishi Motors Chairman and CEO Osamu Masuko and Bollore.
The shift in leadership structure would allow the alliance to better respond to changes in the automotive industry, such as the growing popularity of electric vehicles, Senard said at a press conference in Yokohama at the time.
The management revamp has not been without its critics, however, with some industry insiders maintaining that Saikawa should have stepped down as CEO in response to Nissan's protracted scandal involving Ghosn and owing to the automaker's subpar earnings released recently.
Nissan Motor Co. said Tuesday its net profit for the fiscal year through March dropped to the lowest in nine years owing to sluggish sales in the U.S. and according to the Yokohama-based automaker, its net profit for the fiscal year through March fell to 319.14 billion yen (2.91 billion U.S. dollars), with its net profit down 57.3 percent from a year earlier and operating profit slumping 44.6 percent to 318.22 billion yen (2.90 billion U.S. dollars).
Nissan also announced that for the current fiscal year through March 2020, it expects its net profit to decline to 170 billion yen (1.55 billion U.S. dollars), a drop of 46.7 percent, with an increase in investment costs also forecast to dent its operating profit.
Japan's second largest automaker said that owing to rising investment costs to cover developmental advancements, its operating profit is expected to fall 27.7 percent to 230 billion yen (2.09 billion U.S. dollars), while sales are forecast to edge 2.4 percent lower to 11.30 trillion yen (103.07 billion U.S. dollars).
"We will try to achieve more sustainable growth rather than chasing numbers as was the case under the former chairman," Saikawa said at a press briefing after the firm reported its earnings, with reference to Ghosn, who had set a far more aggressive sales target for Nissan.
In response to his critics, Saikawa said that along with his French partners, he will do his utmost to settle the turmoil created by Ghosn's arrest and slumping earnings to regain public, employees' and restore the trust of the automaker's shareholders.
