REFORMS at Japanese car firm Nissan, part-owned by French car maker Renault, are starting to pay off.

The company is expected to pay its first dividend since March 1998 in May, when the company reveals its full year figures for the year to April.

The pay-out will be a result of the strategy devised by Nissan's president Carlos Ghosn, the so-called Nissan Revival Plan, devised to return the company to profitability. Nissan is also set to announce a senior-level management reshuffle in another sign of the depth of change at the company.

It is likely that managers who have failed to reach their performance targets will be replaced. Nissan's operations back home in Japan are likely to bear the brunt of the shake-up. The company has been struggling to maintain its market share of 17 per cent. Ten years ago it controlled a third of its domestic market.

In January, Nissan's workforce on Wearside celebrated when the Sunderland car plant was awarded the contract to build the replacement for the Micra.

That followed the news in October that half-year operating profit for the group as a whole was £890m