Published in News

Siemens CEO cleans out his desk

by on29 July 2013

Game of Thrones has another wedding

Siemens Chief Executive Peter Loescher is to exit the company, four years before the end of his contract, after the German engineering group this week issued its second profit warning this year.

Siemens, among Germany's three biggest companies by market value, shut up completely about the move but it looks like the finance chief Joe Kaeser will get the job. It looks like there has been a bit of a Game of Thrones being played out at the company. Kaeser, who was already on Siemens' management board when Loescher joined in 2007, wanted Loescher's job. The pair have repeatedly said they worked well together right up until the knife went in apparently.

When asked about the rumours, Kaeser said that the pair complemented each other like "light and dark". We don’t think he thought that one through. Or he was actually telling the truth.  When Loescher became CEO six years ago as the first company outsider to take the helm at Siemens, he was presented as a hero who would lead Siemens out of a massive bribery scandal that had tarnished its image and its finances.

Loescher managed that but started losing credibility as he repeatedly misjudged demand development in its main markets.

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