Diet dry for Carlos Ghosn. Now chaired by Jean-Dominique Senard, Renault has taken a very clear position: the compensation that will be paid to his former CEO will be limited. In a statement, the board of directors The Losange announces having decided “unanimously” to “waive the benefit of the commitment of non-competition subscribed by Mr. Ghosn and, consequently, not to pay him the corresponding compensation equal to two years of remuneration fixed and variable “. Either between 4 and 5 million euros.
In addition, still unanimously, the Board noted that the attendance condition relating to a portion of his deferred compensation “is not met”. More specifically, the statement said, these are performance shares, relating to fiscal years 2015 to 2018, and deferred variable compensation for fiscal years 2014 to 2017. If there were little ambiguity regarding the subsequent fiscal years in 2015, because Carlos Ghosn will probably no longer be director of Renault after thegeneral meeting next June, this was not the case for 2014 and 2015, where the presence condition concerns February 2019.
No discussion
For Carlos Ghosn resigned shortly before the board of January 24, 2019, from his duties as CEO, but remained a director. Gold in the reference document, the presence condition stipulates that it must be “employee or corporate officer”, and the directors are, according to the Afep-Medef code, good corporate officers. On these two points, the stake was 7.7 million euros.
Renault’s advice has therefore been decided: to satisfy the condition of presence, one must be corporate officer executive, that is to say, leader. “It’s very clear, there is no discussion,” says one close to the group. This position was recommended by the Compensation Committee and subsequently adopted by the Board of Directors.
A more aggressive defense strategy.
There remains the issue of variable compensation for 2018, of which only part is subject to attendance. “The Council will rule on March 15,” the statement said. This variable portion will depend on the Group’s results for the 2018 financial year, which the Board is considering on Wednesday afternoon and which will be published on Thursday morning.
It remains to be seen whether Carlos Ghosn will be satisfied with this position. The CEO, embastished in Japan just changed counsel, to adopt a more aggressive defense strategy.