Roland Busch took over the management from the long-standing CEO Joe Kaeser on Wednesday.
The new Siemens CEO Roland Busch.
Siemens has a new boss: Long-time CEO Joe Kaeser officially handed over his office to his previous deputy Roland Busch at the virtual general meeting on Wednesday.
After months of preparation for a change in management, Busch finally took over management of the industrial group. To say goodbye, Kaeser presented a solid quarterly profit despite the corona crisis and looked back on a successful start to the new financial year.
Greater profit
In any case, Kaeser seems to have left the right foundation for this: At least Siemens started its new fiscal year, which began on October 1, with good results, despite the ongoing Corona crisis.
The net profit of the Munich group rose in the first quarter from October to December by 38 percent compared to the previous year to around 1.5 billion euros, as Siemens announced on Wednesday. Quarterly sales were therefore three percent above the figure for the same period of the previous year at a good 14 billion euros. All industrial businesses and especially the markets in China and Germany have developed well, explained Siemens.
outlook
The group believes that the quarterly results have “significantly exceeded” market expectations and raised its outlook for the entire 2020/2021 financial year. Siemens now expects “a medium to high single-digit percentage growth” in sales – adjusted for currency and portfolio effects.
The profit is expected to be between five and 5.5 billion euros; in the past financial year it was 4.2 billion euros. “Burdens from legal and regulatory issues”, as the group announced, are excluded from this outlook.
Busch emphasized that he wanted to “turn Siemens into a sustainable, growing, focused technology company”. “Together with our customers, we want to bring industry, infrastructure, mobility and healthcare into the digital age,” explained the new CEO. Siemens is “a decade ago of possibilities”.
