The former Seat boss appointed to head Renault. Italian Luca de Meo, 52, was chosen as the company's general manager. The Minister of the Economy Bruno Le Maire welcomed a decision intended to "relaunch" the Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi alliance, which has been undermined after a year of crisis.
He will take office from July 1 only because he is bound to Seat / Volkswagen by a non-competition clause. Financial director Clotilde Delbos, who had been acting interim general manager since October, was also appointed deputy general manager on the same date.
Craftsman of Seat's return to grace
Large projects await Luca de Meo, a multilingual and perfectly French-speaking manager. The president of the board of directors Jean-Dominique Senard is counting on him to breathe new life into a business shaken by the upheavals of the Carlos Ghosn affair, the former boss of the group who arrived clandestinely in late December in Lebanon to flee Japanese justice. who was to judge him for various embezzlement.
This marketing expert who has spent his entire career in the automotive industry, straightened Seat, which he took over in 2015 after having driven sales for the German manufacturer Audi. The Spanish brand, dying four years ago, broke a historic sales record last year. The administrators of Renault had decided in October to dismiss from office the general manager Thierry Bolloré, whose performance and style of management, deemed authoritarian, were questioned.
Challenges ahead for the car
Luca de Meo will notably have to turn around the activity of the diamond brand in Europe, which must move upmarket to stand out more from its Romanian “low-cost” subsidiary Dacia. Renault is at worst on the stock market. The share has lost more than half its value since the arrest of Carlos Ghosn in November 2018, a sign of investor mistrust after a year of crisis between the French manufacturer and its ally Nissan.
Jean-Dominique Senard, who took control of Renault in the midst of a storm last year, is trying to convince that a refoundation of the Franco-Japanese partnership is underway while the rumor of a possible divorce has circulated. The health of cooperation with Nissan, of which Renault owns 44% and which in turn holds 15% of Renault, is considered crucial for the French manufacturer's ability to cope with the technological upheavals underway in the automotive industry. The electrification, the autonomous driving functions and the connectivity of the vehicles require massive investments and therefore a critical size to be able to amortize them over long series.
With Mitsubishi, of which Nissan owns 34%, the Franco-Japanese alliance rose to third place in the world for car manufacturers by the volumes sold, behind the German Volkswagen and the Japanese Toyota, but with a much lower profitability, fault so far sufficient synergies. "80% of this alliance is in front of us and not behind," said Jean-Dominique Senard recently, while a renewal of the management teams was carried out at Renault as at Nissan. A meeting of the leaders of the alliance is scheduled for Thursday at the headquarters of the Japanese manufacturer in Yokohama. Decisions are expected on concrete projects such as the development of joint vehicles.
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