As of: February 27, 2024, 3:13 p.m
By: Sebastian Hölzle
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Wind power problem: Siemens Energy has recorded a billion-dollar loss due to quality defects in two types of systems from Siemens Gamesa.
Shareholders are angry.
© Jörg Sarbach / dpa
A “catastrophic year”, a “lost year”: Shareholders of the energy technology group Siemens Energy settled accounts with the board of directors and supervisory board at the general meeting yesterday.
Munich - The anger among shareholders is enormous: "This was simply a catastrophic year for Siemens Energy and its shareholders," said Daniela Bergdolt from the German Association for the Protection of Securities Holdings (DSW) yesterday at the online general meeting of the Munich energy technology group Siemens Energy.
“The share price is like a rollercoaster and many shareholders have been thrown out.” Ingo Speich from Deka Investment spoke of a “lost year”.
The share price collapsed by more than 30 percent in 2023, and even by minus 50 percent compared to the DAX.
“Investors now have the attitude: no news from Siemens Energy is good news.
It's already come this far." Arne Rautenberg from Union Investment said: "No other company that is still in the DAX today has given investors such high daily losses since 2008 as Siemens Energy did last year." Hendrik Schmidt from DWS Investment described this The past financial year, which ended at the end of September, was “disappointing”.
Siemens Energy and the Gamesa problem case
To understand the criticism, you have to know the recent history of Siemens Energy since its spin-off from the Munich-based Siemens Group in 2020: Siemens AG had also transferred its share in the Spanish wind power company Siemens Gamesa to Energy.
Siemens Energy held around two thirds of the shares in Gamesa.
Because Siemens Gamesa turned out to be a problem child, the Siemens Energy board saw a complete takeover as the best solution.
The shock followed in the summer of last year: massive quality defects in bearings and rotor blades were discovered in the wind turbine types 4.X and 5.X.
Annoying: A number of wind turbines had already been installed.
CEO Christian Bruch made provisions worth billions.
This led to a loss of 4.6 billion euros at group level in the past financial year - despite good business in traditional energy technology.
The federal government steps in with a guarantee worth billions
Indirectly, there was a second problem: Because banks lost confidence in the face of the Gamesa problems, they hesitated to provide guarantees for new orders.
The federal government stepped in and approved guarantees totaling 7.5 billion euros.
Condition: As long as the guarantees are running, there is no dividend.
The head of Siemens Energy, Christian Bruch, told shareholders yesterday: “I promise you, we will solve the problems in the wind business.” From the point of view at the time, the complete takeover of Siemens Gamesa was well justified, as there would be no energy transition without wind.
By 2030, the market for wind turbines on land will grow by six percent every year, while growth at sea will be four times as high.
However, Bruch admitted that the results were a “big disappointment and a bitter setback”.
Supervisory board chairman Joe Kaeser, who as Siemens boss was responsible for the spin-off of Energy in 2020, admitted “homemade problems” at Gamesa.
Bruch and his management team still have the “unrestricted trust” of the supervisory board.
Although representatives of Deka Investment, Union Investment and DWS Investment announced that they did not want to discharge the board of directors, the majority of shareholders voted in favor of the discharge yesterday, based on their shares in the group.
However, Daniela Bergdolt from DSW warned: “We will relieve you because the figures for the first quarter give hope for a light at the end of the tunnel.
But we do this with a wagging finger.
You are a board on probation.
If the situation does not improve, we will certainly not relieve you next year.”