AutoBeta(AutoBeta.net)08/31 Report--

Osamu Masuko, the former chairman of Mitsubishi Motors, has died of heart failure at the age of 71, Kyodo news agency reported. Earlier, Yoshiko stepped down as chairman and director on Aug. 7 for health reasons, and Taoka Kato, the company's chief executive, temporarily replaced Yoshiko as chairman.

As one of the oldest and longest-serving executives in the history of the Japanese auto industry, Yoshiko graduated from Waseda University, joined Mitsubishi in 1972 and became executive director and automotive minister of the company in 2003. In 2004, it was exposed that Mitsubishi Motors concealed the failure to recall auto parts defects in time, which led to a serious business crisis and huge losses.

In order to revive Mitsubishi Motors, Mitsubishi Corporation, as a major shareholder, dispatched Yoshio to serve as Managing Director of Mitsubishi Motors and became president of Mitsubishi Motors in 2005. Under Yoshiko's leadership, Mitsubishi Motors rebranded itself as a maker of electric cars, cross-border vehicles and SUV cars.

In 2014, the then chairman of Mitsubishi Motors announced his retirement, and Yoshiko took over as chairman and CEO, while Tetsuro Sagawa held the post of president. In the past two years alone, Mitsubishi Motors has been exposed to fuel economy fraud scandals, sales and share prices have fallen sharply, Tetsuro Sagawa resigned, while Nissan, led by Carlos CarlosGhosn, bought 34 per cent of Mitsubishi Motors, becoming its largest single shareholder. At this point, Ghosn served as chairman of Mitsubishi Motors, while Yoshiko continued to serve as CEO.

In November 2018, Ghosn was arrested on suspicion of underreporting his remuneration and violating the Financial Commodities Trading Act. Subsequently, Mitsubishi Motors announced the dismissal of its chairman, and Yoshiko took up the post of chairman for the time being. In June 2019, Mitsubishi Motors management changed greatly, Yoshiko officially became chairman of Mitsubishi Motors, and Takao Kato, who is in charge of Indonesia, served as CEO.

Ghosn's arrest destabilized the relationship between Renault, Nissan and Mitsubishi, and sales of all three companies fell sharply. In addition to Ghosn, former Nissan chief executive Hiroshi Nishikawa and former Renault chief executive Thierry Bolore also left last year, and with the departure and death of Yoshiko, the last senior alliance executive of the Ghosn era also officially left.

Although the new management of the Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi Alliance is in place and its new business plan was announced in May this year, the impact of the epidemic cannot be ignored. Mitsubishi Motors expects an operating loss of 140 billion yen (9.3 billion yuan) in the fiscal year to March 2021, its biggest loss in 18 years.

To this end, Mitsubishi Motors has once again adopted a strategic contraction, focusing on Southeast Asian markets, reducing staff and car production, and closing unprofitable car dealerships, thereby achieving the goal of cutting fixed costs by 20% within two years. In addition, Mitsubishi plans to stop production of Pajero models in 2021 and close its manufacturing plant in Gifu Prefecture, Japan, as well as the current operating pressure on Mitsubishi Motors.

In the past few years, Mitsubishi's development of China's automobile market can be said to be inseparable, but also promoted the development pace of China's automobile industry. However, Mitsubishi Motors does not have a strong sense of presence in China. GAC-Mitsubishi sold 34679 vehicles in the first half of the year, down 53.21% from 74113 in the same period last year.

The coming period of time will be the most difficult time for Mitsubishi Motors. Whether Mitsubishi Motors can survive the difficulties or not will need to be faced together by the company.

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