Desperate to shake off the image of worthy but stodgy underachiever, Siemens AG yesterday had to accompany its first half figures to March 31 yesterday with a repeat of its warning that profit would be flat this year – but it is doing something about it. It now plans to divest or dump into joint ventures more of its more non-core and underperforming businesses over the next year or so than it had expected only two months ago. It is now taking of businesses with annual sales totaling about $3.2bn, up from the earlier target of $1.75bn. That rules out all of Siemens Nixdorf Informationssysteme AG for now, although more bits could be sold, as was the high-speed printer arm. And the unit remains under notice that the numbers have got to come out a lot better, or joint venture looms.
