Nissan CEO Makoto Uchida will reportedly resign from his post within the week, having failed to get a proposed merger with Honda across the line amid financial turmoil for his company.
Nikkei Business reports Uchida-san, who has headed Nissan since December 2019, will soon announce his resignation, with the carmaker’s relevant executives to select and announce a successor as early as next week.
“We are approaching a time when personnel, including the top management, will undergo major changes,” a Nissan insider told the publication.
Current global Nissan CFO Jérémie Papin has reportedly been shortlisted for the role of interim CEO.
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Makoto Uchida
Uchida-san’s reported impending resignation comes less than a month after a proposed merger with Honda – and potentially existing partner Mitsubishi – fell through.
That merger could potentially be back on the table.
According to Nikkei Business, the Nissan insider also said, “we don’t know if it will be a wholly owned subsidiary, but the talks will probably proceed in the direction of accepting Honda’s investment”.
As previously reported, the merger was called off after Nissan stood firm in not wanting to become a subsidiary of Honda and instead demanding to be treated as an equal.
Nissan insiders told Japanese newspaper Yomiuri Shimbun the thought of not being given equal footing by Honda was an “insane decision”, effectively leading to the collapse of the merger.
This was despite experts seeing Nissan as bringing less to the table for the partnership, due to its financial hardships and shrinking market share in key regions.
Uchida-san and Honda CEO Toshihiro Mibe
Meanwhile, Honda was reportedly frustrated with the speed of Nissan’s restructuring as well as the depth of its financial troubles.
Honda CEO Toshihiro Mibe had previously said Nissan getting its financial house in order was a “prerequisite” for the merger.
The Financial Times reported last month that the Nissan CEO was also facing pressure from his own board as well as partner Renault after merger negotiations broke down.
Reports circulated in the days after that Honda would still consider merging with Nissan, on the caveat that Uchida-san would resign.
If Uchida-san does resign, that means it’s unlikely Nissan will turn to Taiwanese firm Hon Hai Precision Industry, better known as Foxconn, for support, as has previously been reported.
Following the announcement that the merger wouldn’t go ahead, Nissan said it would undertake major cost-saving measures in a bid to recover 400 billion Yen ($4.14 billion) by the 2026 Japanese fiscal year.
For context, its operating profit slid from 478.4 billion Yen ($4.69 billion) in April to December 2023 to 64 billion Yen ($663 million) across the same period in 2024. Its net income also dropped by 320.2 billion Yen ($3.3 billion) to 5.1 billion Yen ($52.8 million).
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