March 16 (Bloomberg) -- Nissan Motor Co. Chief Executive Officer Carlos Ghosn will give up daily oversight of North American operations after Japan's third-largest carmaker missed its profit forecast for the first time in seven years.

Ghosn, who heads both Nissan and Renault SA, will hand over responsibility for operations in the Americas to Executive Vice President Hiroto Saikawa, who is also in charge of purchasing, the carmaker said in a statement on its Web site.

The change will give Ghosn, 53, more time to focus on a plan to be announced next month that will tackle what he's called a ``crisis'' at Tokyo-based Nissan. Ghosn, who became Renault's CEO in 2005, is simultaneously trying to double the French carmaker's operating margin to 6 percent in 2009.

``Ghosn revived the company by running flat out, but he has pushed himself and employees to the point of exhaustion,'' said Koichi Ogawa, who helps oversee $28 billion at Daiwa SB Investments Ltd. in Tokyo. ``The company's sales are doing poorly.''

Nissan last month cut its earnings forecast for the current year due to weaker-than-expected sales in the U.S. and Japan. The company also plans to reduce production at two factories in Japan from April 2 through June because of weaker domestic demand.

``We will take into consideration that this year we missed our forecast'' when deciding on new management, Ghosn said in a Feb. 2 interview. ``We have to put more energy into management.''

Share Performance

Shares of Nissan fell 0.9 percent to 1,285 yen in Tokyo. The stock has fallen 5 percent in the past 12 months, compared with gains of 21 percent for Toyota Motor Corp. and 16 percent for Honda Motor Co. Nissan's American depositary receipts, which each represent two ordinary shares, fell 27 cents to $22.02 in Nasdaq Stock Market composite trading at 4 p.m. New York time.

Renault stock has gained 3.5 percent in past year, compared with a 79 percent rise at Volkswagen AG, Europe's biggest carmaker. Renault shares fell 0.8 percent at 85.62 euros at 4:17 p.m. in Paris. The Boulogne-Billancourt, France-based company owns 44.3 percent of Nissan, which holds 15 percent of Renault.

Nissan last month scaled back its full-year profit forecast 12 percent to 460 billion yen ($3.9 billion) from 523 billion yen. Nissan will probably miss a 3.73 million-vehicle global sales forecast for the year ending in March, Ghosn said Feb. 2.

U.S. Sales

Nissan's U.S. sales of cars and light trucks fell 5.3 percent last year to 1.02 million, its first annual decline since 2001. The sales rose 4.8 percent in this year's first two months, helped by models such as the redesigned Altima sedan. The U.S. accounts for almost 30 percent of Nissan's global sales.

Renault's car and light-truck sales in February fell 4.6 percent from a year earlier as demand in Europe slumped for models such as the Clio subcompact and Megane compact.

``It's not humanly possible to oversee everything he was doing all at once,'' said Pierre Nebout, manages about 3 billion euros ($3.99 billion) in French stocks, including Renault, at Edmond de Rothschild Asset Management in Paris. ``He clearly needed to delegate a bit.''

Nissan Chief Operating Officer Toshiyuki Shiga will focus on Japan and shift responsibility for general overseas markets to Senior Vice President Colin Dodge. Starting in April, Ghosn will directly oversee the company's treasury, which had been overseen by Shiga. Ghosn will continue to spend half of his time at Nissan and the other half at Renault, the Japanese automaker said.

Saikawa, 53, previously was in charge of Nissan's European operations and ran joint purchasing for Renault and Nissan. He has worked at Nissan since 1977.

``Top management seems to be too stretched,'' said Yoshihiro Okumura, who helps manage $365 million at Chiba-gin Asset Management Co. in Tokyo. ``Nissan faces a lot of problems and these changes will hopefully help them focus.''

Domestic Market

Nissan's domestic sales, excluding minicars, fell for a 17th straight month in February as customers opted for vehicles with smaller engines. Nissan, which exports fewer vehicles to North America than Toyota and Honda, depends more on its home market.

``The fiscal first quarter will be the toughest part for Nissan,'' said Kurt Sanger, a Tokyo-based analyst at Macquarie Securities Ltd. who rates Nissan shares ``outperform.'' ``Nissan will renew some models for export in the second half, which will help its production go up.''

The automaker will cut one shift on one of its production lines at factories in Kanagawa and Tochigi prefectures, Yuichi Nakagawa, a Nissan spokesman, said in Tokyo. The plants each have two production lines.

Program for Improvements

Nissan will announce a plan in April in response to missing its goal. The Japanese carmaker will probably focus on cutting costs further in purchasing, making better use of production capacity and strengthening sales and marketing efforts, especially in Japan and the U.S., said analysts including Koji Endo at Credit Suisse Group in Tokyo.

The automaker is adding Senior Vice Presidents Junichi Endo and Dodge to its executive committee, which makes major business decisions, such as building new factories. As of April, Nissan will have nine executive committee members, up from seven. The appointment changes are effective April 1, the company said. Nissan announces management changes before April every year.

Ghosn, who was dispatched from Renault in 1999, led Nissan from a record loss to six consecutive record profits after becoming president in 2000.

Nissan didn't introduce any Nissan-brand vehicles for 15 months and went 18 months without any new Infiniti-brand models in the U.S., its most profitable market. During that period, Toyota released the fully redesigned Camry sedan and Yaris compact car, while Honda introduced revamped CR-V and Acura MDX sport-utility vehicles in the U.S.

In the second half of this fiscal year, Nissan started selling the new Versa compact car and redesigned Sentra and Altima cars in the U.S. Nissan is betting on 11 new or redesigned vehicles that it plans to introduce globally in the year starting April 1, including the Rogue small crossover.

``We are expecting fiscal 2007 to be better than fiscal 2006 from sales to net income,'' said Ghosn last month.

To contact the reporter on this story: Kae Inoue in Tokyo at kinoue@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: March 16, 2007 16:18 EDT