Economics Veronika Grimm elected to Siemens Energy supervisory board

DMany Siemens Energy shareholders took advantage of the first opportunity to express their dissatisfaction with the billions in losses in the wind business at the annual general meeting on Monday. The fund companies of the savings banks (Deka Investment), the Volks- und Raiffeisenbanken (Union Investment) and the Deutsche Bank (DWS) refused to discharge the board of directors led by chairman Christian Bruch. In contrast, the economist Veronika Grimm, who is a member of the Economic Advisory Council, was elected to the supervisory board. DWS representative Hendrik Schmidt praised Grimm's nomination as convincing from a professional perspective and as a good and independent addition to the supervisory board: “We will be very happy to approve the election of Professor Grimm,” he said.

After the record loss of 4.6 billion euros in the last financial year 2022/23 (as of September 30th) and the problems at Gamesa that caused it, he took the board to court all the harder: “The fact that the enormous additional burdens at Gamesa were so short after the complete takeover and after the raising of additional investor funds, leaves us with doubts about the previous due diligence process,” he said and asked the board: “When will we know the exact and final amount of the additional charges at Gamesa know reliably?”

The Spanish subsidiary has long been faced with problems in the onshore wind turbine business. In spring 2023, Siemens Energy completed the 4 billion euro takeover of Gamesa's minority shares, which required a capital increase of 1.3 billion euros. Bruch defended this controversial transaction: “Without a complete takeover, there is no corporate control.” However, he admitted that he had not previously thought losses of this magnitude were possible. At the same time, the CEO asked shareholders to be patient because solving the problems with onshore turbines will probably take several years.

Credibility has suffered greatly

Ingo Speich, Head of Sustainability and Corporate Governance at Deka Investment, described it as shocking that Bruch had praised Gamesa with the greatest conviction and enthusiasm until shortly before the profit warning. “The profit warning probably caught you, but definitely the capital market, suddenly and by surprise.” In Speich's opinion, this destroyed trust in the capital market. Reliable communication looks different. In Speich's opinion, regaining trust on the capital market will require valuable time.

Union Investment's fund manager, Arne Rautenberg, also suffered greatly from credibility. The problems at Gamesa were either not seen in full or were glossed over. He turned to CEO Bruch and CFO Maria Ferraro: “Mr Bruch and Ms Ferraro, after the huge own goal that you scored for yourself and us, the shareholders, with the completely overpriced complete takeover, you can no longer afford any further profit warnings You don’t want to completely lose your credibility.”

With regard to Gamesa, the chairman of the supervisory board, Joe Kaeser, spoke of a serious setback that had put Siemens Energy in difficult waters. “It also creates bitterness because the full takeover of Siemens Gamesa, which was actually intended to solve the problem, made the situation significantly worse.” At the same time, Kaeser assured CEO Bruch and the management board of the supervisory board’s full trust.