Nissan finance chief to step down as company’s troubles worsen – report

Nissan’s chief financial officer is reportedly resigning, shortly after a report that said the company has 12 or 14 months to survive if it doesn’t find a new shareholder.

Bloomberg reports Nissan CFO Stephen Ma will step down in the near future, according to an unnamed insider.

His departure comes after now-former Nissan chief operating officer (COO) Ashwani Gupta departed in June 2023, with reports subsequently emerging that the carmaker had installed a camera system at his Tokyo home.

Mr Ma was promoted to the CFO role in late 2019, and has worked for Nissan – or its Chinese joint venture partner Dongfeng – since 1996, a handful of years prior to the carmaker entering its now 25-year alliance with French marque Renault.

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While the Renault-Nissan Alliance brought profitability to both carmakers, the Japanese brand has struggled since former CEO Carlos Ghosn was arrested for allegedly embezzling corporate funds – a charge which the now-fugitive has denied.

Nissan’s financial woes have been mounting in recent months due to slipping sales in its two biggest markets – the US and China – with a report by The Financial Times last week claiming a senior official close to the carmaker said, “we have 12 or 14 months to survive”.

“This is going to be tough. And in the end, we need Japan and the US to be generating cash,” the senior official close to Nissan told The Financial Times.

A source close to Renault reportedly told the publication it would be open to selling a portion of its shares to Honda.

Renault is wanting to further reduce its stake in Nissan – having cut its holding from 43.4 per cent to under 36 per cent last year – leaving the Japanese brand searching for a long-term, steady shareholder such as a bank or insurance group to provide financial stability.

Nissan announced earlier this month it plans to cut global production capacity by 20 per cent and axe 9000 jobs to “stabilise and right-size” the business, after consolidated operating profit for the first half of Japanese fiscal year 2024 fell 303.8 billion yen (~A$3bn) to 32.9 billion yen (~A$334 million).

The brand’s CEO Makoto Uchida has announced he’ll voluntarily forfeit 50 per cent of his monthly compensation, while other executive committee members are also taking a pay cut.

Nissan’s share value has fallen by 36 per cent in the past 12 months, now at its lowest since the COVID-19 pandemic shut down borders across the globe.

As reported last week, Nissan’s reliance on sales in the US are under threat after incoming President Donald Trump said he would impose a 25 per cent tariff on imports from Canada and Mexico.

The latter is home to several of Nissan’s manufacturing plants, with upwards of 300,000 vehicles exported from Mexico to the US so far this year. It’s the only country where Nissan production has increased year-on-year.

All three of Nissan’s most affordable cars sold in the US – the Versa, Kicks, and Sentra – are built in Mexico.

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