Why GE Shareholders Hate Siemens

Siemens (SI) is as close as a conglomerate gets to General Electric (GE). Siemens has a power generation and power transmission unit. It has an automotive components business and a group that does industrial automation. Siemens also has a medical products operation and businesses in the building and light and financial services fields.

Sounds like GE without the TV network and movie studio. Siemens’s revenue over the last four quarters is about $107 billion. GE’s is $161 billion.

Of course, Siemens is involved in a bribery scandal and the German authorities are all over the company. In the meantime, GE meets its financial targets and forecasts solid growth. And, the market seems to believe that the conglomerate’s purchase of the Abbot Labs (ABT) diagnostics business is a good move.

And, that is what drives GE shareholders up the wall. Over the last year, Siemens shares have handily outperformed GE’s, even though the stock in the US company trades near multi-year highs. Over the last six months and the last three months, the comparisons are even worse.

It must be the NBC unit.

Douglas A. McIntyre can be reached at [email protected]. He does not own securities in companies that he writes about.