Nissan Motor Co. lost 44.4 billion yen, or $421 million, in the last quarter, the company’s July-September quarterly report revealed.
The Japanese automaker said sales fell this year due to the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic while addressing the infamous case of its former chairman, now-wanted-fugitive, Carlos Ghosn.
The report, published on Thursday, showed a drop in quarterly sales, which dipped to 1.9 trillion yen ($18 billion) from last year’s 2.6 trillion yen ($24.7 billion). In the same period last year, Nissan recorded 59 billion yen ($561 billion) in profit.
The earnings report touched on the Ghosn case that has been partly blamed for the company’s recent downturn, as it impacted Nissan’s image and left it in a state of turmoil that the pandemic exacerbated.
The company accused Ghosn, who is residing in Lebanon, which has no extradition treaties with Japan, of misusing its assets to cover personal expenses, including buying houses in Brazil and Lebanon with $27 million of Nissan’s funds.
Nissan said in the report that it took what happened seriously and has taken steps to improve governance, while Ghosn maintains his innocence, which he emphasizes in a book he published recently.
With that said, Nissan’s chief executive officer, Makoto Uchida, promised that the company will recover and become a trusted company, delivering products that will be praised as “Nissan-like.”
On that note, Nissan officials expect its global sales to recover by the end of the current year, as long as improvements continue at the current pace.