After a loud escape from house arrest from Tokyo, the great functionary seemed to be permanently stuck in his historic homeland, in Lebanon. Let’s try to trace the path of the famous fugitive and recluse.
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Once a super-successful functionary will soon become a character in a Hollywood story. Photo: Nissan
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Since 2018, Carlos Gon has been arrested several times in Japan for financial misconduct and concealment of income. They released him on bail and arrested him again until the crisis manager escaped from custody.
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The escape story came out truly detective. According to Japanese law enforcers, Gon was secretly taken out of Tokyo in a private plane in a box from under musical equipment. The abduction, as they say, involved up to 20 people – employees of a Lebanese PMC. The former head of the Renault-Nissan alliance has now been put on the wanted list in many countries of the world, which makes the once successful functionary and crisis manager virtually not allowed to travel from his historical homeland – from Lebanon.
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Cost killer
Many call Carlos Ghosn the killer of costs, the killer of costs, the king of profitability, as well as the ideologist and initiator of the change of automobile eras. In fact, it was he who created the largest international auto empire. And where is the empire, there, as you know, the emperor and authoritarianism. In our case, expressed in total unification and redrawing the model lines of the French and Japanese concerns, which led to a complete change in the image of Renault and Nissan.
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“Citizen of the world”, as Gon himself calls himself, fluent in Portuguese, English, French and Arabic.
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Lebanese by birth. Christian. Born in Brazil on March 9, 1954. The Gones later returned to the troubled Beirut, where the boy was in college, and then moved to France. In Europe, Carlos in 1974 graduated from the chemical faculty of the Higher Polytechnic School, and another four years later – the Higher Mining School in Paris. As we see, Ghosn subsequently “taxied” with the help of his natural abilities, and not a special education. Talent.
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After training in 1978, Ghosn gets a prestigious place at Michelin. The tire (and not only) giant in those years was in a fever. In 1976, in order to survive, the concern was forced to get rid of the shares of Citroёn, which it controlled for more than thirty years. Carlos gave Michelin 18 years, gaining in return invaluable experience and incredible career growth.
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Carlos Ghosn, 26, runs the Michelin factory in France. Photo: Nissan
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Successful career
At the age of 30, he began operations director of the South American branch of Michelin. Having not worked in Rio de Janeiro for two years, and directly reporting directly to Francois Michelin, thanks to his exceptional tactics and right decisions, he led the unprofitable branch to profit.
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Ghosn was responsible for the Brazilian division of the concern, then became the director of the North American branch – in 1990 he was appointed CEO of Michelin North America. Ghosn oversees the engineering, development, research, and operations that the company is involved in in North America. And here he relies on his own method.
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Ghosn significantly reduces tire manufacturing costs, making Michelin in the US once again starting to make a profit
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By the mid-90s, the French Renault S.A. was in a deep crisis, and in 1996, the chairman of the board of directors of the automaker Louis Schweitzer invited Gon to the position of executive vice president.
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The gon moved to Renault, 40% state-owned, when at the end of the year it showed losses of almost two billion francs. There wasn’t enough money, the reputation was at a loss, French taxpayers were also dissatisfied. Photo: Renault
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Mission: Reorganization
Ghosn reorganized the concern in just a year. He closed a factory in Belgium, and in addition, there was no Renault company left around the world (including Samsung Motors and Dacia), which would not have swept the wave of mass reductions and reorganization initiated by a ruthless functionary. His actions then caused a huge wave of protests and even threats. But the plan worked again, and the winners, in the end, are not judged.
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Already in 1998, Gon was considered a real economic genius, and to those who miraculously managed to keep his job at Renault, he seemed like a hero
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In 1999, Renault management considered Gon’s mission accomplished. And he, with full consent, went to save another victim – the Japanese concern Nissan Motor Co. Ltd, which at that time was in the deepest crisis in its history. Twenty billion debts, six of which are losses only over the past year, the share of the global and Japanese markets is falling along with the prestige of the brand. To begin with, Carlos Ghosn gets the position of production director and within a week – the time needed to get to know the business – the manager promises the management of the concern to withdraw the Japanese company from the crisis in a year.
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Photo: Nissan
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How Gon closed factories
It turned out even faster. Guess how he did it? Right! Again at the expense of workers. He immediately closes five Nissan plants in Japan and throws about 20,000 people into the street. About 14% of the concern’s employees become unemployed, which is nonsense and a humanitarian catastrophe for Japanese manufacturing traditions. It’s not accepted here. Almost half of the managers went under the cuts knife, but cuts were also made for work shifts. Perhaps Gon will remember that “bloody default” in the future?
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In an effort to reduce non-manufacturing costs, he initiates the sale of almost all shares of supplier companies previously owned by the automaker. A significant part of the models coming off the assembly line goes under the knife. In addition, Ghosn takes control of the design office of the concern. Apparently, to stop Japanese amateur activity with an “Asian design”, which de facto “kills” the product for the rest of the world.
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Renault Louis Schweizer, Renault CEO and Yoshikazu Hanawa, Nissan CEO, sign a collaboration agreement Photo: Renault
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And pretty quickly things started – Nissan capacity utilization increased from 53% to 82%, and the cost of component purchases decreased by 20%. Curiosities flew in from all directions, but that did not prevent him from literally juggling posts during his career at Nissan.
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In 2000, Gon turned from a production director into a concern president, and in June 2001 he was appointed Nissan CEO.
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In 2004, Gon was again remembered in Renault. Actually, they didn’t forget about him, since it was through his efforts that since 1999, between the concerns, an active, sorry for the tautology, asset exchange took place. As a result, Renault bought a 44.4% stake in Nissan, and that, on the contrary, became the owner of a 15% stake in Renault. It was with the filing of Gon that a mutually beneficial technical and financial alliance was created at that time, now known as the Renault Nissan Alliance.
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Ghosn – Alliance Leader
In short, in April 2005, Carlos Ghosn reigns at the head of both concerns and becomes the head of the alliance, which a little later joins in turn the drowning and demanding salvation of Mitsubishi. Gon’s plan to conquer the world is simple. The rich – Infiniti. You give the middle class relatively inexpensive crossovers with economical CVTs, and for emerging markets – a mass model on the B0 platform.
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Logan to every house, and for those who don’t have enough, we’ll extract the Datsun brand from mothballs
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At the end of 2005, the French-Japanese alliance was in second place in terms of profitability among automotive concerns in the world. Carlos Ghosn becomes one of the best paid managers in the world. At Renault alone, its services are valued annually at several million euros. How much Gon got into Nissan, the story is silent. If you believe the employees of the concern, not just several times more, but much more. They prayed for him as a savior.
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Ghosn is not accustomed to embarrassing himself in expenses when a virtually unlimited corporate card is at hand. What they just do not blame him! Dozens of costumes from the best couturiers. Gifts for loved ones, for partners, dinners in expensive restaurants for thousands of people on the occasion of their own anniversary. Support, under specious business pretexts, of Lebanese friends, a wife and children (he has four of them from his first marriage) and other “innocent” pranks are typical, according to Nissan employees and the investigation version, the behavior of one of the most famous top managers in the world. Gon’s expenses when he was the head of the alliance are no secret now, you can read about them in the Russian press as well. It’s just very similar that the concerns simply turned a blind eye to these tricks and were, as they say, in the know. So, by the way, Gon himself claims.
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He spent a week in Tokyo, another in Paris, his family should not be forgotten, then he flies around the world, checking factories, offices, enterprises. Perhaps it was precisely the frequent flights that woke up a real Lebanese in Gon – a man from the East who loves palaces. Due to Nissan acquired several mansions? So what? This is for representation purposes. Is it possible to blame Gon, who really works all day and night. It actually works at the interstate level. It was Gon in 2009 who personally presented then the first Nissan Teana, assembled at the company’s plant in St. Petersburg, to Prime Minister Putin. Ah, where is that Teana now?
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Platform B0 as a trump card
He has a personal Golfstream with an annual raid of 240,000 km. In the middle of the “two thousandth” crisis is already over (the next is not yet visible beyond the horizon). Factories no longer close, but reopen, new markets are being developed. Massive expansion to China, where joint ventures are opening. Deployment of the production of Logans in India. Increasing the production of the same Logans in Moscow at the Avtoframos plant. Construction of a plant in Tangier (Morocco). Products on the B0 platform will also be produced here. Purchase of a controlling stake in AvtoVAZ.
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In Togliatti, the plans are standard – in order to raise the brand’s reputation, improve the quality of cars, increase market share, and, of course, reduce costs, it will take tens of thousands of people to lose their earnings. In 2013-2016, Carlos Ghosn even occupies the post of chairman of the board of directors of the Russian concern. As time went. The B0 platform continues to take over the world, and AvtoVAZ is really turning into a modern enterprise creating competitive cars on the French-Japanese platform. In 2018, he even shows net profit!
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Formula 1, Grand prix of Brazil, 2005 Photo: Renault
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The alliance has a “fat”, allowing you to closely engage in the theme of electric vehicles. Renault wins in Formula 1. Remember the bright ride of Fernando Alonso? But something went wrong …
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So why didn’t the Japanese forgive Carlos Ghosn for the trivial financial mischief alliance? For many years they turned a blind eye to the methods of its management, and in the fall of 2018 they stopped? The only thing that comes to mind is that the industrialists from the Land of the Rising Sun were frightened by the ever-increasing influence of the European and related European financial institutions. The Japanese fear that alien gaijins will take control of their traditionally home auto industry, and apparently, there was every reason.
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It is no coincidence that on the eve of the arrest, the Japanese appoint their fellow countryman Hiroto Saikawa to the post of Nissan CEO. At the same time, Ghosn remains the chairman of the board of directors of the Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi alliance, and the internal security service actively digs for him, bringing to light the facts sufficient to open a criminal case – incomplete payment of taxes, unauthorized use of company assets for personal purposes. As a result, in November 2018, Carlos Ghosn was arrested, his entire team was dismissed, and criminal proceedings began in Japan.
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Photo: Nissan
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In December 2019, a citizen of Lebanon, Brazil and France, the former head of the world’s largest automobile empire, neglecting the $ 14 million bail flees from Tokyo in a box from under musical equipment. In Japan, such a person under investigation does not hang a special tracking bracelet for tracking.
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What about Gon now?
Today, Carlos Ghosn lives in Beirut in a mansion that was once acquired by the concern for him and his family. Nissan unsuccessfully tries to return the property, and the ex-head does not move out.
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Ghosn claims that he is not guilty of anything, the matter is purely political, and he reported to the company about all the expenses for which he is accused
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Maybe so, but with his daring escape, Gon completely deprived himself of legitimacy. It is unlikely that he will be able to save any other concern from death. Today he needs to be saved himself. Cut costs, get rid of non-core assets and what he usually did there in such cases.
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