Siemens CEO Roland Busch experienced his first Annual General Meeting at the helm of the company amidst the tension between an "unprecedented boom in order intake", shareholder praise and protests against "outsourcingitis". The manager was able to go into the virtual shareholders' meeting on Thursday with a strong tailwind from the latest figures. However, employees at several locations protested against the spin-off of the large drives business.

On the morning before the Annual Shareholders' Meeting on February 10, Siemens had reported a strong increase in profits of 20% to €1.8 billion for the first quarter of its fiscal year. On a comparable basis, sales climbed by 9% to €16.5 billion. The order intake grew - also on a comparable basis - by an extraordinary 42% to 24.2 billion euros.

Siemens attributes the boom in orders to customers bringing forward procurement measures on the one hand and major orders for the Mobility division on the other. The Group is not worried that a large proportion of the orders brought forward could be canceled again. There are advance payments for many of them and incoming orders have the "same degree of severity" as usual, said CFO Ralf P. Thomas.

Employee-shareholder association calls for an end to outsourcing

Siemens did not see any reason to increase the forecast this time - last year it was raised several times. However, Thomas said that he saw potential to reach or even exceed the upper end of the target corridor for earnings per share. And in three months' time, when the figures for the second quarter are presented, the outlook will be updated.

Protest action in front of the Siemens plant in Nuremberg.

© Nicolas Armer/dpa

There was praise from shareholders for the past year. It went "great", said Daniela Bergdolt from the Deutsche Schutzvereinigung für Wertpapierbesitz. Vera Diehl from the fund provider Union Investment spoke of "excellent figures".

The employee shareholder association "We for Siemens", on the other hand, called for an end to the spin-off of the large electric motor business (LDA). "No more spin-offitis". It called for the future opportunities of the division to be exploited. And there was also protest on the streets: Several hundred employees came together in Berlin and Nuremberg to protest against the restructuring. LDA is to be spun off by October. The division has around 7000 employees worldwide, 2200 of them in Germany.

Siemens, on the other hand, is continuing to "sharpen" its portfolio and is making good progress with this: late on Wednesday evening, it was announced that the company was selling its parcel and postal business and divesting its share in the electric car joint venture with Valeo. The parcel and mail business is being sold to the Körber technology group for 1.15 billion euros. Valeo is taking over the partner's share in the joint venture. Siemens expects this to have a positive effect on earnings of 300 million euros in the current second fiscal quarter.

Siemens has been undergoing a reorganization process for years. On a large scale, this should actually be completed with the spin-off of Siemens Energy in 2020, but there are still some smaller areas that Siemens wants to divest.

Siemens Energy puts slight pressure on earnings

Siemens still holds a stake of around 35% in Siemens Energy. However, the company is not happy about this at the moment: the stake already had a slight negative impact on earnings in the past quarter and the recent problems with wind power and the subsequent further fall in the share price could now delay the planned further reduction of the stake.

Overall, however, the Siemens news was very well received on the stock market: The share price rose by more than 7% at times in the morning, making it the strongest gainer in the Dax. By Thursday afternoon (February 10), the gains had melted away somewhat.