ZURICH (Reuters) – Siemens shareholder Deka Investment will vote against the reelection of Jim Hagemann Snabe as chairman at the German engineering group, it said on Monday.
Snabe, who has been a member of the Siemens supervisory board since 2013 and chairman since 2018, is seeking two more years as chairman at the company’s shareholder meeting on Thursday.
«Mr. Snabe has been a member of the supervisory board for more than 10 years at the time of the election, which means he is no longer independent according to our rules,» said Deka’s head of sustainability and corporate governance Ingo Speich.
Deka owns a stake of 0.79% in Siemens and is the 11th biggest investor in Siemens, according to Refinitiv data.
The fund manager’s concerns were first reported in an interview with German news portal The Market.
«We already announced this to Snabe last year and the year before,» Speich told The Market.
Snabe, a former chief executive at business software company SAP, told Reuters last December that he planned to stay as Siemens chairman for two years in order to manage his succession.
Former Nestle and Fresenius CEO Mark Schneider has been mentioned as a possible successor, with the executive standing for election to Siemens’ board of directors on Thursday.
Snabe told Reuters in December that he had only received positive feedback from investors about his decision to stay on for two more years as Siemens chairman.
«I have held preliminary talks with investors and proxy advisers about my extension,» the 59-year-old said in December. «I haven’t found anyone who sees this as a problem.»
(Reporting by John Revill, Editing by Friederike Heine and Louise Heavens)
