Siemens (NYSE:SI) shook up the management deck at its healthcare division yesterday after reporting a fiscal 1st-quarter profit slide of nearly 13%, ousting Siemens Healthcare CEO Hermann Requardt "to enable a generation change at the launch of the new healthcare company," according to a press release.
Siemens said it tapped a new team to lead its hopefully revitalized healthcare unit, effective Feb. 1, promoting imaging & therapy systems leader Bernd Montag to CEO, Michael Sen to CFO and diagnostics CEO Michael Reitermann as a member of executive management.
"Mr. Requardt and the managers and employees of healthcare can be quite proud of their highly successful work together over the past years. I have the greatest respect for Mr. Requardt’s decision to make way for a generation change. We are now setting up healthcare as a separately managed business within Siemens in order to pave the way for an equally successful future in a highly dynamic market and innovation-driven environment. This is now the task of Bernd Montag, Michael Reitermann and Michael Sen. They will have the full support of the managing board and their direct partner, board member Siegfried Russwurm, who worked in the company’s former medical engineering and medical solutions units for 10 years," Siemens president & CEO Joe Kaeser said in prepared remarks.
Siemens Healthcare posted profits of €413 million (about $463.8 million) on sales of €2.85 billion ($3.20 billion) for the 3 months ended Dec. 31, 2014, marking a -12.7% bottom-line slide on sales growth of 5.8%. Siemens overall missed 1st-quarter profit forecasts, reporting a 25% profit decline to €1.10 billion ($1.24 billion) on a 3% sales decline to €17.4 billion ($19.54 billion).
“The performance of most of our businesses was within our expectations. While some divisions provided excellent performance, healthcare needs to step up its efforts to quickly resume to its outstanding performance and power & gas will need a more comprehensive concept to return to historical margins longer turn," Kaeser said.
Siemens said it still expects earnings per share to rise at least 15% during fiscal 2015, but warned that the business environment would be "complex" due to geopolitical tensions, among other things.
(€1 = $1.1231). Material from Reuters was used in this report.