Renault names VW's De Meo as CEO, finalises management shakeup

Paris

RENAULT on Tuesday named Luca de Meo, the former head of Volkswagen's Seat brand, as its next chief executive, as the car maker looks to draw a line under a year of turmoil by finalising a long-awaited management shake-up.

Mr De Meo's appointment fills one of the big gaps left at the French company after it cleared the decks following the 2018 arrest in Tokyo of former boss Carlos Ghosn, and as it seeks to reset its strained alliance with Japan's Nissan Motor Co.

Ghosn, who forged and oversaw the Renault-Nissan partnership for almost two decades, has since fled Japan to Lebanon, from where he has contested the financial misconduct charges against him and said the partnership was at risk of collapse.

Mr De Meo will start on July 1, Renault said in a statement.

Nissan said it welcomed his appointment. "We are all looking forward to working closely with him and our alliance partners in our efforts to support mutually profitable growth," Nissan president and CEO Makoto Uchida said in a statement on Wednesday.

Clotilde Delbos, the car maker's finance chief who has been interim CEO since former Ghosn ally Thierry Bollore was ousted last October, will then become deputy CEO.

Italian-born Mr De Meo had been hotly tipped for the job, but faced hurdles because of a non-compete clause in his VW contract, sources previously told Reuters.

Mr De Meo will have his work cut out to turn around the firm. He will take the reins under Renault chairman Jean-Dominique Senard, brought in last January from tyre maker Michelin, and who has so far emerged as the de facto senior figure in the Renault-Nissan alliance.

Like its rivals, Renault is grappling with a downturn in demand, and has said it expects a slight decline in the car market in Europe, Russia and China this year.

The firm has also presented 2020 as a make-or-break year for the alliance with Nissan and is under pressure to deliver on cost savings and joint industrial projects.

Carmakers face pressure to meet stringent new emissions targets with less polluting models, and are also competing to produce innovations such as self-driving cars, which require large investments.

Mr De Meo, who speaks French, will be one of a growing handful of outsiders in senior company jobs in France. The 52-year-old started his career at Renault, and has worked at Fiat - where he was one of the managers who helped launch the Fiat 500 model along late boss Sergio Marchionne - and Audi among other brands.

He is credited with revitalising sales at Barcelona-based Seat, imbuing it with a more sporty image and accelerating projects that were already in the works. His portfolio will be markedly larger at Renault, however, whose brands include Dacia and Lada.

Meanwhile, Nissan Motor Co will scale back its US sales operations, shuttering two regional offices and offering buyouts to some of its staff as the Japanese carmaker seeks to regain its footing.

The manufacturer will streamline its Northwest and Mountain states regional sales offices to six other locations by July 1, but did not say how many staff would be impacted by the change or when those sites would cease to operate.

Nissan, after a year of management turmoil and weaker demand in key markets, unveiled a restructuring plan last July to cut 12,500 jobs globally. The latest cuts are separate from that plan, the company said. In that time, Nissan replaced the chief executive officer who succeeded Ghosn and then appointed Mr Uchida to turn the business around, with profits at a decade-low and relations tense with Renault.

"To adapt to current business needs and improve efficiencies, Nissan will offer voluntary separation packages to eligible US-based employees," the carmaker said in a statement. "The company also is streamlining its regional sales operations to better support dealers and our customers."

Nissan said it will offer "voluntary separation" to both salaried and hourly employees 52 or older in the US. The company did not specify which business units would be impacted or the level of financial incentives being offered. Nissan does not have a target number of employees to take voluntary redundancy, and those eligible will be notified by Jan 31. Nissan currently has 20,000 employees across all US operations.

Nissan sold 1,345,681 cars in the US across its core and Infiniti brands in 2019, down 10 per cent from the previous year. The luxury Infiniti brand saw its sales decline by more than a third last year.

Nissan is also said it will follow the lead of other carmakers in the US such as General Motors Co and Ford Motor Co in shifting from monthly to quarterly sales reports. The company said the reporting change, effective from this month, will present a clearer picture of sales performance over a longer period. REUTERS, BLOOMBERG