Siemens AG and the former subsidiary Siemens Energy have actually gone their separate ways since their IPO in autumn 2020.

Actually.

Because the 35 percent share that the Dax group still holds in the energy technology company has brought Siemens a quarterly loss for the first time in twelve years: In the months from April to June, the industrial group posted a bottom line minus of 1.5 billion euros after one Net income comparable to prior year period.

The annual targets have therefore also been adjusted.

Ilka Kopplin

Business correspondent in Munich.

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Siemens had to write off 2.7 billion euros on the block of shares because of the weak development on the stock exchange.

Siemens had already announced this in a mandatory announcement at the end of June – also that the forecast would be checked against the figures for the third quarter presented on Thursday.

Siemens Energy has been struggling with domestic and industry-wide problems for a long time, which weighs on the share price.

Added to this was the withdrawal from Russia in the last quarter, which primarily affects the Mobility train technology division, and once again squeezed profits – by almost 600 million euros in the third quarter alone.

Overall, the exit has cost around 1.1 billion euros so far, it said on Thursday.

A solution is still being sought for the leasing business.

There could be further burdens in the three-digit million euro range.

Busch sees himself well positioned with his portfolio

"It wasn't an easy quarter, but we mastered the challenges," said Siemens CEO Roland Busch in a conference call with journalists.

The manager was convinced that the company's own portfolio was still in the right position for the major trends of digitization and sustainability.

On the stock exchange, the Siemens share price was initially negative in a positive market in the morning, but later turned positive.

In operational terms, on the other hand, things went well in the third quarter despite increasing difficulties and uncertainties.

Group-wide revenues grew on a comparable basis by 4 percent to almost 18 billion euros, and incoming orders rose by 1 percent to 22 billion euros.

"Our order backlog reached a new record of EUR 99 billion - and it is of high quality," said Busch.

Business was particularly good in the two divisions of industrial automation and infrastructure technology.

This includes, for example, the automation of factories or the equipment of data centers.

The result in the industrial business grew by 27 percent to 2.9 billion euros.

This already includes the proceeds of 739 million euros from the sale of the traffic technology provider Yunex.

The margin improved to 17 percent after 14.9 percent in the same quarter of the previous year.

"This shows that we have the right offer and the right strategy to be successful even in uncertain times," said Busch.

Despite full order books, Siemens is also increasingly feeling the effects of supply bottlenecks for important components and rising purchasing costs, which the group wants to offset with higher prices.

The management announced that the company should also look at its own costs in a disciplined manner.

Illness-related production losses also had an impact.

Catalog of measures in the drawer

The management is therefore preparing for more troubled times.

"We are aware that we are on a very steep growth path - even adjusted for price increases," said CFO Ralf Thomas.

And further: “We are not naive.

We know that something like this can change very quickly.” That is why measures have been put on the shelf so that countermeasures can be taken at short notice.

"For the next 12 to 18 months, our teams are working on different scenarios in order to manage the challenges flexibly," said Busch.

In this context, the risks of a possible gas bottleneck were also analyzed, for which Busch sees the group as prepared.

Natural gas is only used in a few downstream production areas for which preventive measures have been taken.

"Currently we see little direct impact on our factories because our production is not energy intensive."

In view of the depreciation, Siemens now expects earnings per share of between EUR 5.33 and EUR 5.73 for the fiscal year ending at the end of September – after EUR 8.32 in the previous year.

So far, the Dax group had expected a range between EUR 8.70 and EUR 9.10 per share.

The difference of 3.37 euros per share corresponds exactly to the value of the depreciation on Siemens Energy, said CFO Thomas.

Meanwhile, Siemens will benefit more from the sale of some business areas, including the mail logistics division, than previously expected.

Thomas now expects the sales to bring in 2.2 billion euros - 700 million euros more than previously thought.