Siemens AG may float its semiconductor unit, Infineon Technologies, in both Germany and the US in October. Director Ulrich Schumacher said that market speculation that Infineon could attract a valuation of $5.2bn to $10.4bn was not completely wrong. Such a vast disparity in estimates gives little clue as to what the real figure will be.
The valuation rests on how far Siemens has managed to turn around its troubled semiconductor business, which made a loss of $626.8m last year. Schumacher told a press conference in Munich he was cautiously optimistic about results in the current fiscal year. In the first six months, Infineon showed a pre-tax loss of $54m.
Schumacher forecast that Infineon would grow more quickly than the market over the next few years. Siemens made it clear that Infineon would go public with no debt and adequate liquidity. A series of plant closures and rationalization have arrested the decline of the company, which had sales of $3.5bn last year.
