After years of restructuring, Siemens makes change at the top

BERLIN: German industrial giant Siemens prepared to turn a page Wednesday with a new CEO following a restructuring drive, after a year marked by falling sales due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Chief executive Joe Kaeser was to hand off the baton to his deputy, Roland Busch, after a seven-year tenure marked by slimming down and spinning off assets to refocus as a technology company.

After reporting full-year to September earnings down by a quarter as the coronavirus battered the global economy, Siemens said it had turned a corner in the first quarter of its financial year.

The Munich-based company, which makes products ranging from trains to factory equipment, saw a 38-percent surge in net profit to 1.5 billion euros ($1.8 billion) in the three months to December.

Kaeser announced in March that he would not be pursuing a contract extension and would pass the reins to Busch, 56, who has been a Siemens director since 2011 and served as Kaeser's number two since October 2019.

"Siemens is in a better position today than a few years ago," Busch told the daily Sueddeutsche Zeitung in December, defending Kaeser's stewardship.

At the end of September, Siemens spun off its Energy division, which includes oil-and-gas operations, and in October sold components subsidiary Flender to US-based Carlyle for 2.0 billion euros.

Siemens Energy, in which the group still holds a 35.1-percent stake, this week announced it would slash 7,800 jobs over the next four years to cut costs in a rapidly changing market.

Despite the ongoing impact of the virus, the group on Wednesday lifted its growth forecast for the year to "average or higher", with strong prospects for its software and industrial automation activities.

Business daily Handelsblatt said Busch's challenge would be "promoting synergies" while "consolidating" the progress Kaeser made in shifting the group to more profit-making businesses.