Sat, Mar 17, 2007 page10

• Ghosn juggles roles at troubled Nissan Motor Co

  MANAGEMENT CHANGE The high-profile foreign CEO at the Japanese firm will drop management of the Americas and switch to supervision of the treasury

  • AP AND AFP
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  Nissan Motor Co chief executive Carlos Ghosn, Japan's breakthrough foreign manager, said yesterday he would juggle roles to take charge of finances at the automaker, which he has said was in a "performance crisis."

  Ghosn, who balances his time with leading France's Renault, will give up the helm of the Japanese company's management committee for the Americas.

  But he will also take over supervision of the company's treasury department from Toshiyuki Shiga, Nissan's No. 2.

  Shiga will also quit as top of a management committee for general overseas markets.

  "The priority for our new management team is to act decisively on the multiple challenges facing Nissan and to boost our overall performance in 2007," Ghosn said in a statement.

  The globetrotting Ghosn, a Brazilian-born Frenchman of Lebanese origin, took charge of Nissan in 1999 and turned the car maker around from near bankruptcy to robust profits.

  But Nissan expects its net profits to slip in the current fiscal year for the first time since Ghosn took over, in what its one-time savior has described as a "performance crisis."

  Japan's third-largest car maker also announced yesterday it would cut auto production at two factories in Japan because of slow domestic sales.

  Nissan spokeswoman Pauline Kee did not disclose the size of the cutback, but said it would affect production at factories in Kanagawa and Tochigi prefectures.

  On one production line at each plant, staffing will be cut back to one shift from two shift from next month to June, Kee said. Each factory has two production lines.

  "We are adjusting our production to balance output with market demand," Kee said.

  Annual production capacity at the Kanagawa plant is around 334,000 units, while the Tochigi factory can churn out 192,000 units.

  Last month, Nissan slashed its annual profit forecast after seeing a 22 percent slump in earnings in the October to December quarter.

  Separately, Hyundai Motor Co chief Chung Mong-Koo called yesterday for new growth drivers to offset the challenges from Japanese and Chinese rivals.

  "We need fresh growth engines to swiftly and effectively cope with an uncertain business climate," Chung said in a statement.

  "Unlimited competition is continuing in the global auto industry. Japanese firms are stepping up their push to hold us in check while latecomers in China and other countries are catching up at a faster pace," he said.

  Hyundai, the world's sixth- largest automaker, also faces the challenges of foreign exchange fluctuations and a global economic slowdown, he said.

  Chung's statement followed a similar warning by Samsung Group chairman Lee Kun-Hee who said last month his group has been "sandwiched" between Japanese and Chinese rivals.

  Lee said the country's largest conglomerate could face a "chaotic" situation in five or six years due to falling profitability.
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