Nissan Motor’s CFO Stephen Ma is set to step down, Bloomberg News reported on Saturday (Nov 30), citing people familiar with the matter, weeks after the Japanese automaker issued a profit warning and announced plans to cut thousands of jobs globally.
It is unclear whether Ma will leave the automaker or be demoted, the report said, adding his office had declined to comment.
Nissan declined to comment when contacted by Reuters.
Ma became Nissan’s finance chief in 2019, replacing Hiroshi Karube, weeks after it named the head of its China business, Makoto Uchida, as its next chief executive.
Nissan said earlier this month that it will cut 9,000 jobs and 20 per cent of its global manufacturing capacity, as it scrambles to reduce costs by US$2.6 billion in the current fiscal year amid a sales slump in China and the US, its two biggest markets.
The plans underline the vulnerability of the automaker, having never fully recovered from the disarray and internal strife that led to the 2018 ouster of former Chairman Carlos Ghosn and scaling back of the partnership with Renault SA.
Nissan’s global sales fell 3.8 percent to 1.59 million vehicles for the first half of the financial year, largely due to a 14.3 per cent drop in China.
Like many foreign automakers, it is struggling in China where BYD and other local manufacturers are gobbling up market share with affordable EVs and hybrids that boast advanced technology.
But Nissan’s bigger problem may be in the United States, where it lacks a credible line-up of hybrid cars. That’s in contrast to Japanese rival Toyota, which has seen a boom in demand for gasoline-electric hybrid cars.
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