At this DN Salon, two of Tokyo’s top international journalists, Régis Arnaud and Yann Rousseau, will bring the mallet down on the guilt or innocence of Carlos Ghosn, the former boss of Nissan.
Indeed, the team recently completed one of the best investigations to date into the Ghosn Case, entitled “Le Fugitif: Les Secrets De Carlos Ghosn”. (Details below, French & Japanese only). They interview dozens of people, trace the byzantine money trail, delve into his personal history and above all, separate fact (dramatic enough, in any case) from fantasy.
Attendees will, by the end, be in little doubt about the moral verdict on Carlos Ghosn, irrespective of the legal definition of the charges brought against him, and regardless of Japan’s controversial system of hostage justice.
To be clear: Regis and Yann are scrupulously fair, but their tenacious detective work and expertise in financial structures reveals such a melding of Ghosn’s private interest and Nissan’s public business that the verdict on Ghosn will be obvious – to this observer at least.
To anyone who witnessed the rise and fall of the ‘imperial CEOs’ who contributed to the 2009 Great Financial Crisis such as Lehman’s Dick Fuld, Merrill’s Stan O’Neill, HSBC’s John Bond and Deutsche’s Josef Ackermann, Ghosn’s behaviour fits a pattern. Toweringly successful, surrounded by sycophants, yet always feeling ‘underappreciated’, the conditions are ready for a CEO’s actions to take a psychotic turn.
Ghosn’s admitted management genius was undermined by his appetite for the complex investment instruments he bought from Shinsei, the favourite bank at the time for wealthy Tokyo expats. When the GFC hit, he was many millions of dollars in the red. First he spread the risk to Nissan, and then sought bailouts and loans from Middle Eastern friends. When many of those friends began to receive multi-million payments from the special CEO Fund he controlled at Nissan, the conditions were ripe for a coup, and some sharp questioning by the Tokyo Prosecutor’s office.
Yann and Regis will guide us through the murky details and complex arrangements of this case and also bring us up to date with Ghosn’s battle in Lebanon – it’s not over yet.
Any CEO wanting to learn about the risks and temptations of being a foreign ‘Celebrity CEO’ in Tokyo should attend this event.
Born in 1971, Regis Arnaud has lived in Tokyo since 1995. He is the Japan Correspondent of Le Figaro, and Editor in Chief of France Japan Eco. He is also an artist, producing films, books and plays. His first novel was published in 2018.
Yann Rousseau was born in 1973 and since 2010 represents France’s top business newspaper Les Echos in Tokyo. He covers Japan and the two Koreas and has worked in Beijing, Phnom Penh and Hanoi. He is considered one of the region’s leading financial and economic analysts.
The book: https://www.amazon.com/fugitif-secrets-Carlos-Essais-Documents-ebook/dp/B084D63C6V/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=regis+arnaud&qid=1594343434&sr=8-1
When: July 17, 3pm. A Zoom link will be sent at 2.45 to enable ‘networking’. To further simulate a F2F event, attendee details will be shared among the guests after the event – please let us know if you are NOT OK with that.
(This event is inspired by the Delphi Auto Group ‘The Petrolheads’ on the Delphi Whatsapp forum)
Who with: Yann Rousseau Tokyo Correspondant Les Echos; Regis Arnaud Editor-in-Chief France Japan Eco, Tokyo Correspondent Le Figaro.
Fee: 2,000 for members; 5,000 for non-members
