Word: ghosn
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...only one with doubts. Investors and industry watchers are wondering whether Nissan can rev up its sagging sales with the new models. The company has hit some speed bumps lately, after a long run of posting record sales and profits, largely engineered by Ghosn's multicontinental managing act (which has included running Renault since last year). In the first six months of Nissan's 2006 fiscal year, operating profits fell 15.3%, to $3 billion. Vehicle sales fell 6.9% worldwide, and revenues have been flat, at about $39 billion...
...investors. While Nissan boasts a market capitalization of about $53 billion--more than triple that of General Motors--the stock has fallen well behind shares of Japanese rivals Toyota and Honda in the past two years. And some of the air has come out of the chief's reputation. "Ghosn's strategy has been all about cost cutting," says Koji Endo, an analyst with Credit Suisse in Tokyo. "He needs to prove that he can bring real growth to the company's top line. We've yet to see that...
...Ghosn is running a little rough these days, it would be understandable. Seven years ago, Nissan was practically scrap metal: it had a fleet of dull cars, a tangled mess of suppliers, unproductive plants and $20 billion in debt. Ghosn was given the job of salvage man after his bosses at Renault bought a controlling stake. Born in Brazil and reared in Lebanon, Ghosn found his way to tire giant Michelin, where he developed his restructuring chops. But he had never run a car company, let alone a Japanese one, and almost everyone bet against him: a foreigner with...
...even a dynamo like Ghosn, successfully run two carmakers? He could keep his hands full with Renault alone. Like other European carmakers, Renault is grappling with high labor costs, slim profit margins and surging competition on its home turf from Toyota. Yet Ghosn, characteristically, has set ambitious goals for Renault, aiming to add new models, lift profit margins to 6% in 2009, from 2.5% today, and sell an additional 800,000 cars a year. "Everybody knows what I mean by commitment," he says, "and I'm very serious about that...
...fall. Kirk Kerkorian, a large GM shareholder, wanted the flailing auto giant to join the Nissan-Renault family, hoping Le Cost Killer could wield le knife at GM and help boost the stock. Having witnessed the leaps that two former mediocrities like Nissan and Renault could make by partnering, Ghosn found the idea of pooling forces with GM appealing. And he figured GM could help his carmakers save billions of dollars on everything from power trains to transmissions. But the talks fizzled when Ghosn and GM chairman Rick Wagoner couldn't agree on terms--to the relief of Nissan...