The future boss of Renault will not necessarily be French, according to Pannier-Runacher

PARIS (Reuters) – Renault's future chief executive is expected to have experience in business transformation and in the industry sector, which is key to his nationality, the secretary of state told Reuters Agnes Pannier-Runacher.

The automaker has landed last Friday Thierry Bollore, who had succeeded Carlos Ghosn as general manager, to give a new operational breath to the diamond group and its partnership with Nissan, also recently a new direction General.

The State, the largest shareholder of Renault with 15% of the capital, approaches the issue with a very open mind, said Agnes Pannier-Runacher, Secretary of State to the Minister of Economy.

"When we had to look for the best profile for Air France, we had someone who was not French, very good," she said, referring to the appointment of the former boss of Air Canada Ben Smith at the head of the Air France-KLM group, of which the French State is also a shareholder.

"It's the best profile (which counts), which is able to carry Renault and play its role in the alliance at a time of major transformation," she added.

Faced with a new tightening of European emissions regulations combined with a general slowdown in the automotive markets, manufacturers must, more than ever before, use economies of scale if they want to be able to continue to invest in new technologies.

Renault has given interim management to financial director Clotilde Delbos, surrounded by two deputy general managers, time to find a final successor to Thierry Bollore. The search for the new Director General – or Director General – has begun but looks difficult internally.

According to a source of the manufacturer, this mission was entrusted to NB Lemercier & Associates, founded in 2006 by the recruitment of senior executives Brigitte Lemercier.

During the last renewal of his mandate at the head of the group in early 2018, Carlos Ghosn was entrusted with the task of preparing his succession to ensure that the Renault-Nissan alliance survives the generation of its founders.

But the former strongman of Renault has delayed to engage this work, which had not yet been really launched when he was brutally arrested in Japan last November for accusations of financial malpractices he denies. Carlos Ghosn was then content to appoint Thierry Bollore deputy general manager.

"The successor will probably be an external person, because Carlos Ghosn has not prepared anything and left the earth burned," said a source close to the recruitment process.

According to another source familiar with the matter, Renault has several promising young people on the management committee. They may also apply for the post of Director General, but the management has so far delayed to promote them to the Executive Committee, they leave with a real handicap.

ALIGN YOUR TEAM

Thierry Bollore, who embodied since January the operational thread of Renault alongside new President Jean-Dominique Senard, denounced his dismissal as "a coup".

"This is a subject where you have a boss who arrives, who develops his team, which aligns it, nothing but very classic. (Jean-Dominique Senard) does his job, point," commented the secretary of 'State.

Agnes Pannier-Runacher also indicated that the government was not opposed to the possible revival of the aborted project of rapprochement between Renault and Fiat Chrysler.

"Once again, everything is open," she continued. "In the order of the factors, we are quite clear, we want an industrial project, we want a strengthened alliance in the service of this industrial project."

As for the possibility that the state reduces its stake in Renault to give pledges to Nissan, it is not a priority, she said.

"We start with an industrial history, and then we draw the possible consequences on shareholding," said Agnes Pannier-Runacher.

(Sarah White, Gilles Guillaume and Mathieu Rosemain, edited by Jean-Michel Belot)