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Siemens remains upbeat
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December 14, 2000: 9:55 a.m. ET
German firm sees 20% profit rise this year; slower than 2000 increase
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LONDON (CNNfn) - Siemens AG projected double-digit earnings growth in its new fiscal year Thursday, but, after searing gains in fiscal 2000, investors were unimpressed.
The maker of power equipment, light bulbs, computer chips, washing machines and mobile phones, fresh from a blistering year of 74-percent growth in operating profit, said it expects growth rates to cool to a more sustainable 20 percent in the current fiscal year that began Oct. 1.
Siemens plans a listing on Wall Street next March, and to that end it issued its profits under U.S. accounting standards for the first time Thursday. The firm had indicated its profits according to German rules in early November.
Siemens reported that earnings before one-time items, according to U.S. accounting guidelines, came in at  2.6 billion ($2.3 billion) in the year ended Sep. 30. It did not give a comparable figure for the previous year.  Under German rules the company reported an equivalent figure of 3.0 billion.
Siemens (FSIE) shares fell 3.6 percent to 137.73 in Frankfurt by mid-afternoon Thursday, dropping as low as 137.31 earlier in the session.
"The market will need some time to understand this is a very positive report," Heinrich von Pierer, chief executive officer of Siemens, claimed in an interview with CNN's Hala Gorani. The full interview will be broadcast on CNN International's "World Business Today" at 7:30 pm GMT Thursday.
Von Pierer said the challenge facing Siemens, once seen as a stodgy industrial manufacturer but now transformed into a bellwether of the European technology sector, is to demonstrate that its 13 industry divisions benefit from one another.
But one analyst insisted "focus" should remain Siemens' buzzword.
"Siemens is still a very diverse company, and in telecommunications, for example, it's competing with companies that are much more focused in a fast-moving business," said Susan Anthony, an analyst at Credit Lyonnais Securities in London, who has an "add" rating on Siemens stock, at the moment. "In the absence of more strategic news, we're a little bit more lukewarm." 
Siemens is to allow shareholders to swap their shares for stock in its 71 percent-owned chip-making division Infineon Technologies AG (FIFX). Infineon was listed separately earlier this year.
The parent company also announced a one-for-two share split.
Siemens, striving to become one of the world's top mobile-phone makers, said it sold a record 4 million handsets in November despite bottlenecks in component supply.
-- from staff and wire reports 
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Siemens
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