Executive's flight to PSA highlights Renault-Nissan alliance tensions
Send a link to a friend
[September 03, 2019]
By Gilles Guillaume and Laurence Frost
PARIS (Reuters) - A senior Renault-Nissan executive has quit the
troubled carmaking alliance to join Peugeot maker PSA Group <PEUP.PA>,
blaming Renault boss Thierry Bollore for forcing his exit.
Former alliance director Arnaud Deboeuf will become PSA's industrial
strategy director under Chief Executive Carlos Tavares, himself a former
Renault <RENA.PA> second-in-command, the rival French carmaker confirmed
on Tuesday.
Deboeuf's exit underscores deep tensions threatening to subsume the
Renault-Nissan alliance in the wake of the November 2018 arrest of
former Chairman Carlos Ghosn, now awaiting trial in Japan on financial
misconduct charges he denies.
![](http://archives.lincolndailynews.com/2019/Sep/03/images/ads/current/pestcontrol_bch_termites.png)
Those tensions have been exacerbated by failed attempts under Bollore
and new Renault Chairman Jean-Dominique Senard to secure a full
Renault-Nissan merger and to combine Renault with Fiat Chrysler, a move
thwarted by the French state.
Deboeuf was well regarded at Nissan and even offered a senior executive
role at the Japanese carmaker, as his relations with Bollore soured
following Ghosn's ouster, three sources told Reuters. But Bollore, a
former Ghosn protégé who succeeded his absent boss as CEO in January,
blocked the move.
"Thierry Bollore told me no one wanted to work with me ... and that I
could not go to work at Nissan either," Deboeuf said in a farewell email
to colleagues seen by Reuters.
[to top of second column] |
![](../images/090319pics/busine39.jpg)
Arnaud Deboeuf leaves after the Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi alliance
meeting, in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, November 29, 2018. REUTERS/Piroschka
van de Wouw/File Photo
![](http://archives.lincolndailynews.com/2019/Sep/03/images/ads/current/rohlfs_lda_072017.png)
Renault declined to comment on Deboeuf's departure. Deboeuf did not respond to
requests for comment.
His move adds to a steady Renault brain-drain to PSA since 2013, when Tavares
was hired to rescue the carmaker from near-bankruptcy. Other switchers from
Renault include Yann Vincent, PSA's executive vice president for manufacturing,
and powertrain engineering chief Alain Raposo.
Tavares, who preceded Bollore as Ghosn's No.2 at Renault, was pushed out after
publicly voicing CEO ambitions. Under its Portuguese-born leader, PSA has set
new profitability records while making swift headway on the integration of Opel,
acquired from General Motors <GM.N> in 2017.
(Reporting by Gilles Guillaume and Laurence Frost, Editing by Richard Lough and
Mark Potter)
[© 2019 Thomson Reuters. All rights
reserved.] Copyright 2019 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published,
broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Thompson Reuters is solely responsible for this content.
![](http://archives.lincolndailynews.com/2019/Sep/03/images/ads/current/graue_sda_2016.png) |