OT: Siemens sacks CEO..

[The Natural Philosopher]

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Siemens is preparing to remove chief executive Peter Loescher, following a series of profit warnings and operational mishaps that have sapped investors? confidence in the man who has led the German engineering conglomerate for the past six years.

Siemens supervisory board members gathered at the weekend to discuss their response to a crisis triggered by an announcement on Thursday that the company would abandon a target to raise operating margins from 9.2 per cent in 2012 to 12 per cent by 2014.

The profit warning was seen as a watershed moment by investors because it was the latest ? and most serious ? in a succession of calamities to befall the maker of trains, gas turbines and industrial automation technology.

Siemens? second profit warning in three months came amid a series of problems and one-off charges in areas such as offshore wind grid connections, solar and German express trains.

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Even with the EU in their pocket they can't make money out of it.

[tim.....]

Siemens is a proudly German company which IME resolutely tries to stick to its (perceived) social obligations of employing as many Germans as possible.

Consequently it has high costs and to counter that sticks, as far as possible, to high margin products.

If it's struggles to make a product range to work it's more likely to be because the customer wont pay its margins anymore, than because of a fundamental downturn in demand for that product.

tim