Nick Kostov - Boundless: The Rise, Fall, and Escape of Carlos Ghosn

For Grandad

Nick

For Surya and Amartya

Sean

Boundless intemperance

In nature is a tyranny; it hath been

The untimely emptying of the happy throne

And fall of many kings.

William Shakespeare, Macbeth

Contents

In the fall of 2018, Carlos Ghosn went from being one of the worlds most prominent businessmenan automobile executive crisscrossing the globe in his private jetto being an alleged criminal in a Japanese jail cell.

A little over a year later, he became a celebrity fugitive. What had been a big business story moved to the front pages of all the newspapers.

Despite the slew of coverage, Ghosn remained an enigma. In particular, it wasnt clear whether he was the innocent victim of a corporate coup or guilty of a bevy of financial crimes (as Japanese, and more recently French, prosecutors alleged). In escaping from Japan, had he run away from justice or injustice? He had die-hard supporters and fierce enemies whose loud voices obfuscated the truth.

We wanted to get to the bottom of it all.

As reporters for the Wall Street Journal, we had front-row seats to the whole saga. We started covering the story on the day of Ghosns dramatic arrest. It was a game of inches. Ghosn was in a jail cell and cut off from the outside world. There was so little to go on that Ghosns declaration of innocence amounted to a scoop. Every document we could get our hands on or source we could reach was a small victory in trying to understand what had happened and why.

The trail took us from Tokyo to Paris via Lebanon, Rio, Oman, a Caribbean island, and the suburbs of Boston. What emerged most profoundly was the complexity of Ghosns character: we found a man teeming with a blend of charisma and introversion, bombast and restraint, derring-do and conservatism, grand designs and petty obsessions, analytical excellence and irrational moves.

Ghosns life was also the story of globalization, its opportunities, and its excesses. Born in the Brazilian jungle, he had risen to the top of the business world on the back of his talents and hard work. Once he arrived there, he found a rarefied space with almost no oversight.

This book draws on interviews with more than a hundred individuals who afforded us their time and patiently shared their knowledge and experiences. They include interviews with current and former executives at Nissan, Renault, and Michelin, board members, rivals, friends, and Ghosn family members. Many of them spoke on the condition that we would not use their name, a request we have respected.

The book also draws heavily on thousands of pages of documents, including previously untapped legal documents from Japan, France, Lebanon, and the British Virgin Islands, board minutes, audits, internal company reports, emails, presentations, surveys, and audio and video recordings. One stack of documents we consulted stemmed from a hard drive containing a trove of communications between a Lebanese lawyer, Fady Gebran, and some of his contacts, including Ghosn. Ghosns lawyers have said that those documents were obtained by Nissan representatives without following proper judicial procedures, and that it was therefore impossible to guarantee their authenticity. In the course of our reporting, we were able to authenticate dozens of the messages and ascertain that the events or financial transactions described in them took place in real life. Furthermore, we never found a single discrepancy or any indication that other messages might not be genuine. Hence, we decided to use them in the book.

We used a process that has served Wall Street Journal reporters well for decades: the key people mentioned in this book have all been provided with an opportunity to comment on the revelations contained within these pages. We also followed a cardinal rule: No surprises.

Ghosn himself sat down to answer our questions for several hours. He was forthcoming on everything, with the exception of matters related to Oman. He said he would reserve his answers for the French justice system, where he is facing a criminal investigation. That, of course, is his right. He also agreed to make some family members and friends available for interviews. His elder sister, Claudine, in particular was an invaluable source in piecing together Ghosns early life.

As we got closer to publication, we sent an email to Ghosns public relations advisers asking for Ghosn to review a number of facts and anecdotes that we planned to include in the book, and giving him another opportunity to comment on the specifics of the so-called Oman Route.

They came back to us with the following response: Mr. Ghosns counsels are of the view that the intended assertions for which comments are requested are inaccurate and/or incorrect and/or incoherent and/or put out of context. The statement said that Ghosns legal counsel had advised their client not to bother reviewing our message.

Finally, while working on this story, we both developed some of the most intense source relationships weve ever had. It was a particularly difficult time for many of the people mentioned in these pages: families were torn apart, careers were ruined. Often, we conducted interviews while covid-19 had locked down the world, which added even more strain to those peoples lives. Despite all that, they still spoke to us. Our conversations were sometimes emotional, leading to relationships that yielded both revelations and challenges. On occasion, those connections were impossible to maintain. Regardless of the trajectory of our correspondence, we will always be grateful and indebted to our sources. Without them, this book would not have been possible. Thank you.

Nick Kostov, Paris

Sean McLain, Tokyo

Carlos Ghosn: Forged the Renault-Nissan Alliance and was one of the greatest auto executives of all time before his arrest in Japan

Family

Rita Ghosn: Ghosns first wife and the mother of his four children, Caroline, Nadine, Maya, and Anthony

Carole Ghosn: Ghosns second wife

Rose Ghosn: Ghosns mother

Georges Ghosn: Ghosns father

Claudine, Sylvia, and Nayla Ghosn: Ghosns sisters

France

Behrouz Chahid-Noura: Finance chief at Michelin

Franois Michelin: Michelins owner and CEO

Louis Schweitzer: Ghosns first boss at Renault

Patrick Pelata: Ghosns classmate at cole Polytechnique and later his number two at Renault

Alain Dassas: Nissans finance chief during the financial crisis

Frdrique Le Grves: Ghosns chief of staff at Renault and Nissan

Mouna Sepehri: Longtime Renault executive

Emmanuel Macron: Minister of the economy, industry, and digital affairs and later president of France

Martin Vial: Head of Agence des Participations de ltat (APE), which manages Frances interests in corporate assets

Jean-Dominique Senard: Replaced Ghosn as Renault chairman and head of the Alliance

Nissan and Japan

Hiroto Saikawa: Replaced Ghosn as Nissan CEO in 2017

Greg Kelly: American who acted as head of Ghosns CEO office until 2015; arrested along with Ghosn in 2018

Hari Nada: British Nissan lawyer who replaced Kelly as head of the CEO office in 2015

Toshiaki Ohnuma: The head of Nissans secretariat, which handled pay-related issues for the board of directors

Hidetoshi Imazu: Former head of manufacturing at Nissan who became the statutory auditor who launched the investigation into Ghosn

Toshiyuki Shiga: Ghosns former second in command at Nissan, until he retired and joined Nissans board of directors

Hitoshi Kawaguchi: Nissans head of government affairs who aided Imazu in his investigation of Ghosn