Nissan shareholders blast management over Ghosn scandal, dismal results

New Chief Executive Makoto Uchida apologized to shareholders for having "allowed the misconduct" of Ghosn and promised better governance, transparency and financial results, but pleaded for more time.

Unbelievable! The man comes to Nissan, rescues it from bankruptcy, turns it into a profitable company again, gets backstabbed by his own people, gets removed from his position and HE'S to blame???? This is beyond laughable. Its pathetic.

haha, looks like circus...Nissan is done, quite literally.

Maybe its best if they totally scrap nissan name from consumer minds and replace it with renault or mitsubishi...

I am actually amazed how brainwashed some of their shareholders if they actually believe that all the ills of the company is because of Ghosn and let Saikawa still sit in meeting and getting paid after it was found he had his hands in the pot just the same ... Maybe Renault is planning to sell nissan on the cheap to Toyota? ....

Nissan only has itself to blame for the drop in sales. They blame Ghosn, but it’s only since Ghosn was arrested have their sales dropped. If they had put half as much effort into railroading Ghosn as selling cars they would not be in this situation. Ghosn left Nissan for Mitsubishi nearly three years ago, long before he was arrested. It’s the Japanese leaders who replaced him that have screwed the company.

I can just see years from now, they will still blame their incompetence on Ghosn scandal. Plan in May? That's too soon actually. They need to hold many more meetings, which is the only thing they are good at, and present the plan two years later.

Another asked why Jean-Dominique Senard, chairman of French alliance partner Renault SA and Nissan board member, was seen leaving a previous shareholders' meeting in a Toyota.

Lol! Says a lot about confidence!

I don't get how Saikawa just stays silent on the big question and no one follows up? Clearly the guy has no plan to give any of his ill-gained fortunes, the shareholders will have to push harder and not take silence or some non-answer as being acceptable!

New Chief Executive Makoto Uchida apologized to shareholders for having "allowed the misconduct" of Ghosn

I'm pretty sure the shareholders aren't mad about Ghosn, they are mad about the chaos that the incompetent coup against him has caused.

Another asked why Jean-Dominique Senard, chairman of French alliance partner Renault SA and Nissan board member, was seen leaving a previous shareholders' meeting in a Toyota.

This is funny on so many levels.

The Ghosn scandal proves that Japan is no different from the Communist China at the aspect of arresting people who interfere with nationalist interests. Especially foreigners.

With all its current problems, nissan should close down all, its operations. A company that japanese team bullied person call Carlos Ghosn , who built and saved its from bankruptcy should never be trusted. Which normal person with intergrity will ever trust this kind of company ???. The best solution is close the company and rebuild from Zero, but I doubt that nissan have this kind of courage because the operators of nissan have only their personal intetrests in their heart which is obvious to the lost of it's pitiful share-holders. saikawa is a good example of that type of japanese people at nissan. To recover nissan needs a very good team that consist of 50% foreigners and 50% japanese who truly wants to suceed for the share-holders and have intergrity.

Without intergrity and love for any foreigners, a japanese company remains as a company, who image is , a bunch of japanese operaters, who used their japanese power to bully foreigners who cannot read, write or speak japanese to the disadvantage of their share-holders. What a waste of time and money ???. No sane person will buy anything from nissan no matter , at what cheap price. Stop back stabbing nissan and admit yr guilt.

Let's see now. Ghosn turns the company around. Makes it hugely profitable. Management gets jealous. They set the dogs on him. Ghosn is clapped in irons, but manages to escape. Without Ghosn, Nissan crashes and burns and they blame Ghosn for incompetence.

Not a lot of logic in that, is there?

No wonder the shareholders were pissed!

Good riddance. They messed up big time when they tried to nail Ghosn for what they do every day, and if you don't believe, look at Saikawa -- is he being charged criminally? Nope... the guy can't even answer when asked if he'll give up his retirement pay for messing things up. The reason Nissan is failing -- a company which Ghosn single-handedly turned around -- is the reason they needed Ghosn to turn things around. Japanese management style does not work anymore, if it ever did. They are too interested in doing what Ghosn did in terms of stealing from the company, but without actually improving the company as they did it. So now it's all screaming, crying victim, and finger pointing... and of course, all Ghosn's fault and no one else's.

""It was shocking, and I denounce it."

Love it.

Yubaru... and the reply makes not much sense either .. not sure if thats due to the abysmal level of japantoday translators or actualy vague response " Senard apologized and said it was a mistake that had upset him as well." ... it upset him to go there? did they laugh at him or something at Toyota..?

Sounds like an exciting meeting. Probably safe to avoid refreshment afterwards though ;-), just in case.

One shareholder asked if Saikawa was giving up his retirement pay.

This is an excellent question.

Another asked why Jean-Dominique Senard, chairman of French alliance partner Renault SA and Nissan board member, was seen leaving a previous shareholders' meeting in a Toyota.

Because he's not stupid enough to buy during a time when there is a lot of contention over the company. Also, the rental people screwed up.

Stock price fell below 500 yen today for the first time in more than a decade.

Have to feel for some of those Nissan retirees who thought a pension, future dividends and a stable stock price would keep them financial during their silver years.

Another shareholder proposed putting a bounty on Ghosn's head

Wait, what?

Nissan. Innovation that indicts

One shareholder even said that they would have been better off with Ghosn. LOL. That must have hurt a lot, hearing the truth from the shareholders.

lolz @ Nissan

(insert Joker meme: "You get what you ... deserve")

It is funny they still keep on blaming Ghosn, as he was responsible for the economic plunge or he stole all the liquidity of Nissan. The plunge the company took is the result of the inapt and blind policy-making of people that do not deal with marketing and auto-making themselves and are only interested in profit. I seem to recall tha Nissan was not doing all that bad until allegations where forcefully brought against Ghosn, despite all the money they said he took allegedly 'illegally' (I wonder how that was possible, since expenditures and stipend should be almost publicly visible).

There's an old tale in France - with certainly an equivalent in all languages, which exactly applies to this story: It is called "The hen with golden eggs" and shows that one must never kill the hen, if you hope to enjoy golden eggs again...

Mr Saikawa killed the hen, and now Nissan is crying over its misfortune. A very stupid misdeed that Carlos Ghosn would never have provoked, as a seasoned and skillful businessman… and his possibly crooked ways, despite his obvious greed, and uncontrollable hubris (Folie des grandeurs: Think of his birthday in Versailles!)

As for Saikawa, he is so deeply involved, at least as a witness, in these more or less hidden financial arrangements, that he probably was fearing to be himself denounced. He tried to impersonate a whistle-blower. However, to be a whistle-blower, you absolutely must have, excuse my french, a clean whistle! This probably explains why he never took the risk to let Carlos defend himself. The Japanese judicial system - which immediately deprives someone of all fundamental rights - was therefore in his eyes an efficient solution. First he had his ways, but by now, he learns harshly it was not, after all... And it seems to me that Saikawas' sad story remains to be told.

Unbelievable! The man comes to Nissan, rescues it from bankruptcy, turns it into a profitable company again, gets backstabbed by his own people, gets removed from his position and HE'S to blame???? This is beyond laughable. Its pathetic.

It's called Japanese revisionism

@Aly...that’s the way Japanese are! They tend to blame the foreigners for their own mishaps! Up until Ghosn was in charge the company was doing ok. From the time of his arrest the sales dropped! These shareholders show their true colors ( racist to some extent ) by asking for Ghosn head and allowing the snake Saikawa to sit amongst them! They will get what they deserve because Karma is a ***** ( you know what )!

Ghosn had saved the company from bankruptcy before and they backstabbed him and threw him under the bus! Now let’s sit back and see how Nissan falls towards bankruptcy!

Oh, and by the way the French guy was using a Toyota because he know it’s more reliable than Nissan as of late!

Lessons to be learned!

Even if Ghosn was set up ( clearly!), the problem of Corporate Governance, compliance and segregation of duties was there for many years!!

Too much power in the hands of to few managers.

This has resulted in loss of value to all stakeholders, confidence in the brand and a train wreck of an alliance!

The group should quickly resolve this and refocus on building decent and innovative cars, which they are perfectly capable of doing.

On a lighter note, someone should be negotiating the film rights as this will be a blockbuster, both in Japan and globally !!

Alex Einz

I think you need not read the news so literally. Just because the Japanese media and Nissan wants people here to believe Ghosn’s guilt, you don’t actually think all of us believe everything we hear do you?

Kind of ridiculous of YOU to always be assuming Japanese are this and that and the other based on a news article.

@Xeno Man

The Ghosn scandal proves that Japan is no different from the Communist China at the aspect of arresting people who interfere with nationalist interests. Especially foreigners.

China is more of an extreme. In Japan's defense, I honestly believe that an overzealous prosecution jumped on this chance and Nissan plotted the whole thing. Maybe Nissan even secured immunity for themselves and offered up Ghosn. The prosecution happily took the bait and probably didn't know what they were fully getting into.

Time for NISSAN to sell to TESLA! This would do the trick!

Only said by someone who really does not understand the problem Nissan has right now!

Nissan can not stand the fact that Renault holds as many shares as it does and in effect controls the company. They got rid of Ghosn because he wanted to fully merge the two, and that would have destroyed Nissan's "Japanese" identity.

Nissan under Musk would be a disaster for Nissan,.

All I can say is that the majority of Nissans share holders must either be Japanese or not terribly good investors. The writing was on the wall the second they detained Ghosn and they should have abandoned the stock immediately. Ghosn was the key and to be perfectly honest he was worth more than his weight in gold encrusted with diamonds to boot. With Saikawa’s “dubious personal income” which is nice way of saying of exactly what Ghosn was accused off and detained, people can clearly see this charade for what it was. This is exactly what Ghosn said it was a coup to oust him and for Saikawa to seat himself at the top. The person who has brought Nissan to its knees is Saikawa and this is who the shareholders should be livid with including themselves for being so naive.

The suggestion of one the share holders saying a bounty should be put on Ghosn to bring him back shows just how unintelligent these folk are in assessing who damaged the company and who made it the success it was. How exactly is that going to help Nissan and the shareholders? Actually if he had said put a bounty on Ghosn head so we can get him back here to run the company again might have made financial sense and undoubtedly would see an incredible increase in share value over night. But I guess that would be the only way to get Ghosn back in the drivers seat because I am sure he would not do it willingly at any price.

Saikawa is responsible and every share holder at that meeting should have been insisting he go on trial.

Net that is Ghosn could come back Nissan would be in the black in no time.

probably free soon.. but no new parts for it

Give Ghosn immunity. Bring him back to Nissan to turn the company a profit again. Then prosecute him or thank him for saving the company.

I love Nissan sports cars & I love my Z!! Nissan get together with Japanese lawmakers & I'll treat Ghosan, the CEO who saved the company without going bankrupt. When you ill treat someone due to jealousy, KARMA WILL BITE YOUR SORRY ASS... Nissan finding difficulty is due to its arrogant attitude of the man who saved Nissan. TREAT OTHERS LIKE THE WAY YOU LIKE TO BE TREATED & YOU WILL SEE MANY BLESSINGS OVER POURING ON YOU

sell

apologized to shareholders for having "allowed the misconduct" of Ghosn and promised better governance, transparency and financial results, but pleaded for more time.

ah, the good ole fall back plan, blame it on the gaijin. The misconduct of Ghosn...the catchall excuse for incompetence

Well deserved Nissan. This is what happens when you stab your Savior in the back.

Time for NISSAN to sell to TESLA! This would do the trick!

I want to buy a new x-trail... maybe there's some good deal nowadays.

It's called Japanese revisionism

Yep.

Aly...that’s the way Japanese are! They tend to blame the foreigners for their own mishaps!

MikeH- I hear you loud and clear on that one!

Ceo said he would “accept” being fired if he fails.

what an arrogance, would not even resign to take responsibility but take the compensation money.

and he won’t need to be fired because if he fails, seems he did already, Nissan will be bankrupt

Debate and arguments, not so much shouting, should be present at shareholders meetings. These meetings are the parliament. There should be debate rather than the national peoples Congress of yesmen. The board is the executive, and the ceo, coo, etc are the admin...supposed to be anyway.

Dawg, if you're listening...

Closing down is the only solution for a company that people like saikawa operated. Wasting time with lies, back-stabbing and destorying people's life, like the life of Carlos just because those people like saikawa and his close gang , just because they want to take everything away from Carlos out of jealousy???. No good japanese in their correct mind will spend 0.01 yen in a company that has no intergrity. Will anyone ???.

Nissan has to be bought by some stable automobile firm. This will end nowhere otherwise. There is no leadership at Nissan. Its becoming very obvious. And for sure Ghosn will never come to the Nissan rescue at any cost now.

When did it all go downhill in the first place?

We loved all our Nissan cars before switching to a European luxury car. Safety reasons, of course.

When we were two young crazy kids, we owned a several secondhand Nissan clunkers. We would have kept our last clunker longer if friends and colleague did not urge us to get a new car. We got a great sedan. Few problems and the Nissan staff we great. We gave it to a younger relative when we switched brands.

So what happened? I can only think it was the collective idiocy the owners and managers of the company. And I see no way out except bankruptcy.

A wild thought. Let Nissan become a private university. Then they can have all the crazy meetings they want and they'll still remain accredited.

Gambate Nissan. You can do this! Move on and thrive!

I have no time for either the Nissan elites or Ghosn.

Maybe it's time to start thinking about investing in alternatives to cars and corporate cultures.

karma for dinosaurs renault to b extinct nissan the time is just right to get rid of parasite renault n everything will b fine slowly as rome wasnt built in a day

Move on. Build better cars. You can do this Nissan!