Siemens Gamesa Has New Head After Terminating CEO
Siemens Gamesa Renewable Energy (SGRE) has announced Andreas Nauen, who has led the growth of the company’s offshore wind power business, is taking over leadership of the company after the board of directors and CEO Markus Tacke “mutally agreed to terminate” Tacke’s contract.
SGRE made the announcement June 17, saying Nauen immediately will assume the top post. The news came as the company said it will incur “additional project costs” in the third quarter of this year, as the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic continues.
“We’d like to thank Markus Tacke for his work over the past three years and, in particular, for the integration of Siemens Wind Power and Gamesa in the course of the merger,” said Miguel Angel López, chairman of the board of Siemens Gamesa, in a statement. The company said it will appoint a new CEO for its offshore division to replace Nauen “in due course.”
SGRE in May said delays to its renewable energy projects, in part due to supply chain disruptions from the coronavirus pandemic, would negatively impact the company’s earnings this year. SGRE in its fiscal second-quarter earnings report said the COVID-19 outbreak “had a direct negative impact of €56 million [$60.63 million] on profitability, and intensified challenges experienced by the onshore business in India and Northern Europe.” SGRE reported that its margin on earnings before interest and tax (EBIT) fell to 1.5% in the first three months of this year, down from 7.5% in the year-ago period.
The company on Wednesday said “that based on the assessment of management, project costs and the financial impact of COVID-19 disruptions will result in a negative EBIT in the third quarter, before PPA and integration and restructuring costs. The anticipated positive EBIT in the fourth quarter is not expected to completely offset the negative development for the full fiscal year.”
SGRE trails only Vestas in terms of number of wind turbine installations worldwide, according to BloombergNEF. SGRE, which is scheduled to be merged into a larger Siemens entity later this year, said its earnings have fallen despite the company’s build of a record-breaking order book for equipment and services. SGRE and Vestas both withdrew earnings guidance for 2020 in April as the pandemic intensified.
SGRE on Wednesday said that of as of March 31, the company had a record order backlog of €28.6 billion ($32.3 billion), a 21% year-over-year increase.
“Andreas Nauen has successfully demonstrated his ability to handle complex projects in the past,” said López. “He has extensive experience with listed companies in the renewables sector. We expect the new CEO to now stabilize the onshore area quickly.”
—Darrell Proctor is associate editor for POWER (@DarrellProctor1, @POWERmagazine).