CFO Thomas Rathmann and Siemens Healthineers part ways a few months before the planned IPO. There is much to suggest that Siemens was not satisfied with the work of its chief financial officer.
There is much to suggest that Siemens is not satisfied with the way preparations for the IPO, which is expected to be one of the biggest IPOs in the coming year, have gone so far – and holds Rathmann partly responsible for this.
The Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, for example, reported just a few days ago that financial communication under Rathmann was almost non-existent. The CFO may be an excellent controller, but he is not suited to be the financial head of a listed company with strong communication skills. Siemens could have been aware of this when it extended the contract in April.
Siemens Healthineers was originally scheduled to go public this fall, but the company ultimately postponed its initial listing until the first half of 2018. Most recently, however, media reports said that the technology group will not be able to keep to this timetable. Yesterday, however, Siemens once again emphasized that there would be no postponement.
Siemens seems to be unhappy with Rathmann
Shortly before the IPO, there is unrest in the management of the medical division of the technology group Siemens. The Munich-based company announced that Siemens’ former Group Controller Jochen Schmitz will take up the CFO post at the subsidiary called "Healthineers" at the beginning of December. The 51-year-old succeeds Thomas Rathmann, who is leaving the medical technology division "by mutual agreement," according to the Group.
This is surprising in that the company had only extended Rathmann’s contract by five more years in April of this year. The 53-year-old has worked for Siemens since 1985. It also lacks the usual wording that the departing manager is turning to new challenges. This indicates that the decision was made at short notice and that Rathmann may not yet have found a new job.
Thomas Rathmann is not considered a CFO with strong communications skills, but only a very good controller.
New CFO Jochen Schmitz is familiar with Siemens Healthineers
Now Jochen Schmitz is to take Healthineers public. As Head of Accounting, Reporting and Controlling, he has been the right-hand man of Siemens CFO Ralf Thomas since 2011. The new Chief Controller of the Siemens Group will be 48-year-old Jurgen Wagner, currently Head of Financial Disclosure& Corporate Performance Controlling.
Apparently, Schmitz is more trusted with communications than his predecessor Rathmann, although Schmitz has not yet had overall CFO responsibility and thus has not been in the spotlight either. However, the new Healthineers CFO Schmitz is an intimate connoisseur of the medical division and the Siemens Group.
He has worked for the Munich-based company since 2004, initially as Head of Controlling for the Medical Technology Division, and later as CFO in various business units of today’s Healthineers. From 2009 to 2011, Schmitz was chief financial officer of Siemens’ imaging business before rising to become group-wide head of controlling.
Michael Sen was dismayed by IPO preparations
FINANCE heads
Michael Sen, Siemens AG
Already during his studies at the Technical University in Berlin, Sen worked on a part-time basis in the area of economic planning gas turbine plant for the Siemens AG in Berlin and gains practical experience in the American branch office. After graduating in 1996, he was appointed by Siemens Full-time employee and assumes numerous operational and strategic project and management tasks in the Corporate Planning and Development and Finance departments at the Munich location.
From 2001 to 2002, he held the position of Head of Group Programs for Efficiency and Growth Enhancement in the Siemens Mobile Division. Sen then held the CFO position in the Solutions business for a year before moving to the same position in the Applications& Solutions is changing.
Sen then took over as head of the Strategy Transformation department from 2005 to 2007. From 2007 to 2008, he is head of investor relations before rising to CFO of the Healthcare Sector and member of the management board at the Erlangen site.
After around seven years in the post, Michael Sen will be leaving the company as part of the corporate restructuring at E.on from the energy giant and has been its new CFO since the beginning of June 2015. He succeeds Klaus Schafer, who will take over as CEO of the newly founded E.on company Uniper holds.
In November 2016, Sen will receive an offer from his former employer Siemens, To return and take responsibility on the board for the medical technology (Siemens Healthineers), wind power (Siemens Gamesa) and global services divisions. Sen accepts this and moves to the Munich-based company in April 2017.In the fall of 2019, Sen will be appointed co-chief executive of the energy division, whose IPO he is to prepare.
In March 2020, Siemens announces that CEO Michael Sen and CFO Klaus Patzak will leave the company "by mutual agreement." are eliminated. In April 2021, Sen will take over as CEO of the infusion medicine provider Fresenius Kabi, a subsidiary of the Bad Homburg-based Dax Group.
In his last two years at Healthineers, Schmitz worked intensively with Michael Sen, among others, who now serves as a member of the Supervisory Board of Siemens Healthineers and is responsible for the subsidiary on the Siemens Managing Board. Sen worked for the medical technology subsidiary from 2007 to 2015 – first as head of investor relations, later as CFO – before moving to energy giant Eon to make way for Thomas Rathmann. In April 2017, Sen then returned to Siemens in his current role.