Germany’s Handelsblatt newspaper is reporting that electronics giant Siemens has begun transferring ownership of one of its offshoots to the firm’s pension scheme.

The story, which ran last week, states that the pension scheme has doubled its stake in Siemens Energy to 14.8 per cent. Handelsblatt reported that Siemens transferred this proportion of the offshoot to the Siemens Pension Trust as part of a long-term plan to divest itself of Siemens Energy.

In December, Siemens said that its stake in Siemens Energy was declining to 17.1 per cent. In transferring the shares, the firm said that it was strengthening its pension assets in Germany. The previous June saw it transfer a 6.8 per cent stake to Siemens Pension Trust.

Interestingly, the most recent earnings call for Siemens made little mention of either the Siemens Pension Trust or Siemens Energy. Speaking in Munich earlier this month, Dr Roland Busch, president and CEO of Siemens, said that the firm had delivered a ‘solid performance’ in Q2 and was ‘resilient’ in a ‘muted macroeconomic environment’.

The accompanying presentation for the call, however, maintained that the pension deficit remained low at €1.4bn, with a dividend payment to shareholders of €3.7bn and the advent of a new share buyback program. The provisions for pensions, Siemens said, remained at a ‘historic low level’, down to €1.4bn after reaching €2.8bn in 2021.

Over to Siemens Energy and that firm said earlier this month that it had delivered ‘another solid quarter’ in its most recent results.

This performance, it said, was enough to raise its projects for the year.

Quoted in a press release, the firm said: “Due to the business performance in the first half-year, we raised the outlook for the fiscal year 2024 for Siemens Energy. The new forecast is based on adjusted revenue growth assumptions for all segments and higher profit assumptions for grid technologies. In the first half of the fiscal year, the product and service businesses in the grid technologies and transformation of industry segments performed better than expected driven by strong market demand.”

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