Renault offers CEO job to Volkswagen SEAT’s Luca De Meo

Renault has offered the chairman of Volkswagen’s SEAT brand, Luca de Meo, the job of chief executive.

This was reported by the Spanish newspaper La Vanguardia on Saturday, citing anonymous sources.

The report stated De Meo would initially become CEO of Renault for two years before he would take the responsibility for the group’s alliance with Nissan and Mitsubishi.

Reuters had reported earlier that De Meo was a potential candidate for the top job, together with interim Chief Executive Clotilde Delbos and Patrick Koller, the Franco-German CEO of auto parts maker Faurecia, who was also tipped for the role.

If confirmed, De Meo’s appointment would be helpful for ending a prolonged period of turbulence for the French automaker, which has been having a hard time to recover from the high-profile arrest of former leader Carlos Ghosn in 2018.

Renault and SEAT refused to comment on the newspaper report.

Ghosn, who helped enough to form the Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi alliance, was arrested in Japan in November 2018 on financial misconduct charges that he rejects.

Financial chief Delbos took over the reins at Renault when former CEO Thierry Bollore was ousted in October as a part of a purge of executives associated with the Ghosn-era, a move aimed to help patch up the strained alliance with Nissan.

Born in Italy, De Meo has served as the chairman of SEAT’s executive committee for four years, supervising a resurgence in the Barcelona-based company’s sales and increasing its prominence within the Volkswagen group.