From the automotive icon to scandal

PARIS – A barrage and visionary in the automotive industry, Carlos Ghosn is also a highflyer exposed to abundance that may have helped to bring on his surprise undermining as the leader of the world's best-selling car group.

Ghosn turned France's Renault SA and then Japan's Nissan Motor Co., eventually joining them in an alliance with Mitsubishi Motor Corp. in its best-selling venture.

But while he was known as an industrial cost-shooter, he used to be wealthy on his own, thanks to several million dollars of salaries from Renault, Nissan and Mitsubishi. Ghosns October 201[ads1]6 wedding to his second wife at Grand Trianon in Versailles, once favored by Marie Antoinette, featured actors in 18th century attire, a towering wedding cake and heights of goodies.

As the queen saw the man once as a king among industry leaders in France and Japan has blinked like a dying star.

Ghosn, 64, was arrested November 19th in Japan for allegedly forging his financial reports and abusing funds at Nissan Motor Co. Prosecutors say he is suspected of underreporting his income by $ 44 million over five years. He is now sitting in spartan conditions in a detention center that also holds prisoners of imprisonment and recently hanged judge-day leader Shoko Asahara.

No charges have been brought yet, and Ghosn has not made any public comment on the case, but last week, Nissan's board, by unanimous vote, closed its 19-year government as leader. The board of France's Renault voted to hold him as CEO, pending evidence of the matter, but appointed a temporary replacement. Mitsubishi Motors' board would meet Monday to consider rejecting him as leader.

Ghosn is admired in Japan to bring Nissan back from the verge of bankruptcy, but feared for his "cost killers" roads. He started at Nissan by increasing thousands of jobs and closing plants in a country to give up life.

Over nearly two decades, Ghosn has shaken Nissan's hidebound corporate culture, strengthened women in leadership role and lively image design and marketing. He stopped paying out unreasonable equity partners, known as "sokaiya", a courageous move which meant he needed extra security.

When he came home a salary several times than the competing Toyota Motor Corps leader, Ghosn stood out in a nation of "wage" presidents, even at top companies, who earn mediocre salaries to complete everyday careers. Signs his status as an icon, he is the star of a manga or comic book.

Nissan executives credited Ghosn with working hard, listening and guiding staff to perform well-defined goals. He made a point of showing respect for Japanese cultures, posing in Kimono, visiting the factory floor and eating noodles at the company's cafeterias.

However, he also spent a lot of time spent on private jets through time zones and cultures, and frequent high profile events such as the annual demise of the world's elite in Davos, Switzerland, red carpet at the Cannes Film Festival, a Paris couture show.

His business and his celebrity broke him rock status at the auto show. But it also touched anger in Nissan's rank, said an employee, speaking on condition that she was not named, yet described Ghosn as a great boss: precise, communicative and evenly tempered with a sense of humor.

Claim of Ghosn reported in the Japanese media, but unconfirmed, suggests that he spent Nissan funds at fancy homes in Paris, Beirut, Rio de Janiero and Amsterdam, and on family holidays and other personal expenses.

Nissan's CEO Hiroto Saikawa portrayed the boss's suspected maladies as treason, saying he had too much power and was given too much credit for Nissan's success.

"It's hard to put in words, but what I feel goes far beyond anger to scandal," Saikawa told reporters in the evening after Ghosn's arrest. 19659016] Born in Brazil, where his Lebanese grandfather had sought his fortune, Ghosn returned to Beirut as a child. A Maronite Christian, he received a strict jesuit education, so took care of France and higher studies at the elite Ecole Polytechnique and Ecole des Mines.

He started in the automotive industry with tires. By the mid 20's, Ghosn ran a factory in Michelin in Central France before taking charge of the company's South American business in Brazil. He was CEO of Michelin's North American operations, based in the United States before moving to Renault SA.

In 2006, Britain gave him honor queen.

Lebanon, who was proud of his success, published an anniversary stamp with his resemblance last year. In France, where the state has a stake in Renault, he has often met top executives.

Ghosn has long credited his success to his multicultural origins and a permanent "outsider" identity that released him to break the tradition: A 2003 autobiography, one of his more books, is called "Citoyen du Monde" or "Citizen of the world. "

"It helps to come from the outside because people do not see you as someone involved in previous decision-making processes," said Ghosn in an interview with The Associated Press in 2005. "It helps when the company is in crisis."

With so little information published as prosecutors asking Ghosn to decide to accuse him, some believe that the scandal is partly due to friction between Renault and Nissan: French media have suggested that Ghosn's arrest was a set-up led by Saikawa.

The French government has expressed deep concern about the future of the Renault-Nissan Alliance, as it wishes to deepen.

These tribes were evident in a soiree thrown by the French ambassador to Japan in Tokyo the night of Ghosn arrested. The former Renault leader Louis Schweitzer, who sent Ghosn to Tokyo in 1999 to rescue Nissan, was among the present, writers said on the financial crisis Nikkei who participated in the event.

Champagne Glasses is sounded, but the atmosphere was grim, it said. 19659026] With the Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi Alliance, which is the leading industry's sales, it would be tragic if the outrageous scandal undermines Ghana's legacy of diversity and globalization, "said Janet Lewis, Managing Director and Asia, Head of Industrial Research at Macquarie Capital Securities in Tokyo. 19659027] "He did things that were very hard for anyone to have done," she said. "Given the multinational nature of Nissan's top management, which I really admire, I think he did a pretty good job of getting people with very different backgrounds to work together."

___

Yuri Kageyama in Tokyo, Elaine Kurtenbach in Bangkok and Zeina Karam in Beirut contributed.