German technology giant Siemens has transferred a further 8% stake it held in the subsidiary Siemens Energy to its pension asset manager Siemens Pension-Trust eV, it said last month.
The company did not disclose how much the stake was worth. As a result of the transaction, Siemens’s stake in Siemens Energy fell to 17.1%, it said.
The German company already transferred 6.8% holding in Siemens Energy to its pension asset manager Siemens Pension-Trust eV. As last June, cutting the shareholding in the subsidiary from 31.9% to 25.1%.
Siemens Pension-Trust held a 9.9% stake in Siemens Energy at the time of its spin-off in 2020, but it has meanwhile completely sold its holdings.
Siemens said it is carrying on with implementing its plan to further reduce shares in Siemens Energy. With the transfer of the shares to Siemens Pension-Trust e. V., Siemens is strengthening its pension assets in Germany, it added.
Siemens Energy has been going through a crisis as its subsidiary Siemens Gamesa suffered in the past financial year, hitting the company’s earnings in 2023.
High losses in the past financial year and problems with wind engineering subsidiary Siemens Gamesa are likely to burden Siemens Energy’s balance sheet for years to come, the firm disclosed.
In November, the German government decided to grant Siemens Energy a guarantee of €7.5bn, part of an aid package totalling €15bn agreed with private banks and other stakeholders, according to a statement issued by the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action.
The pension asset manager – Siemens Pension-Trust eV – now holds a 14.8% stake in “the high-risk company” Siemens Energy. “This is pretty absurd” from an investment perspective, according to an opinion piece in the weekly magazine WirtschaftsWoche.
Siemens chief financial officer Ralf Thomas uses the Pensionsfonds as a “sales vehicle”, thereby concealing the losses that accrue, the opinion piece added.
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