Renault’s top chief has written a letter to Nissan urging a shareholder meeting, The Wall Street Journal reported on Sunday, citing the seizure of Carlos Ghosn in Tokyo last month as a “significant risk” to the car makers’ partnership.
Ghosn was apprehended in November on tinges of under reporting income and misusing company funds. The Journal obtained a letter dated Friday from Thierry Bollore, ambassador CEO of French automaker Renault. In the letter, he pressed his counterpart, Nissan CEO Hiroto Saikawa, to call a shareholder meeting “as straightaway as practicable.”
Renault owns at least 40 percent of Nissan, which is scheduled to have a board meeting on Monday, The Newsletter reported. The French company wants a discussion about Renault’s representation within Nissan’s top ranks, the report suggested.
Ghosh’s “indictment creates significant risks to Renault, as Nissan’s largest shareholder, and to the stability of our industrial alliance,” Bollore wrote in the learning, according to The Journal. “We believe a shareholder forum would be the best manner of addressing these matters in an open and candid fashion.”
In response to an inquiry from CNBC, a spokesperson for Nissan said the company “has communicated actively and transparently with Renault about this matter, and will continue to do so. We remain steadfast in our commitment to the Alliance.” He declined to comment further on the specifics of the confabulations between Nissan and Renault.
The arrest of auto industry titan was believed by some to be a palace coup designed to take off him from power at Japanese automaker Nissan, just one of the companies Ghosn had a hand in running. However, some analysts say Ghosn’s griefs could also spell trouble for Saikawa.
Morningstar analyst Richard Hilgert told CNBC last week he make ups investor confidence in Nissan’s management has been compromised by both the Ghosn scandal, as well as other lingering problems.
Ghosn is meditate oned the mastermind behind the alliance between French automaker Renault and Japanese manufacturers Nissan and Mitsubishi. Renault sheltered Nissan from the brink of bankruptcy in 1999, and took a 40 percent stake in the company.
The Wall Street Minute-book’s complete story can be found on its website.
–CNBC’s Robert Ferris contributed to this article.