Germany denies Siemens inaction
Print Edition
GERMANY’S government yesterday rejected criticism it had insufficiently backed industrial giant Siemens in a bidding war for a stake in France’s Alstom, which opted for US rival GE’s offer instead.
Chancellor Angela Merkel’s spokesman said: “In principle, as we have repeatedly said, decisions about possible industrial cooperation ... are the responsibility of the enterprises involved.”
France said on Sunday that it would take a 20 percent stake in Alstom, while the engineering conglomerate has accepted General Electric’s 12.35-billion-euro (US$16.8 billion) offer for its energy business.
The French government, which had earlier encouraged a Siemens bid, said on Friday that it favored GE’s bid over Siemens’ joint offer with Japan’s Mitsubishi Heavy Industries.
Merkel’s spokesman Steffen Seibert said yesterday: “The French government has made clear that from its point of view the public interest of France is affected, which is why it acted the way it did.”
Earlier yesterday, the chairman of the German parliament’s economic affairs committee, former transport minister Peter Ramsauer, had charged that Berlin had done too little to support the Siemens offer.
Ramsauer also accused Paris of “placing French unilateral interests ahead of European interests” by choosing a US partner, and of ignoring its public debt problems by purchasing a 20 percent stake in Alstom.
Siemens chief Joe Kaeser, meanwhile, said the main reason its offer had failed was opposition from Alstom Chief Executive Patrick Kron, adding however that the door remained open for further talks.
“We made what was clearly the better offer in terms of jobs, price and future perspective for French and European industry,” Kaeser told top-selling Bild newspaper.
He said Kron had “determinedly fought” the German bid, an opposition stance in the face of which Siemens “could not and did not want to” persist, he said.
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