From Brink of Bankruptcy to Sudden, Massive Wealth: Siemens Energy’s Wild Ride

In the autumn of 2023, a poignant story circulated across the Frankfurt Stock Exchange: Siemens Energy—one of Germany’s most iconic industrial giants—was teetering on the edge of bankruptcy. Its share price had plunged nearly 70% from its 2021 peak; banks rushed to withdraw credit—‘taking away the umbrella in the rain’—refusing new loans. The company faced potential losses of up to €4.5 billion. Ultimately, even the German government was forced to step in, providing a €7.5 billion state-backed guarantee to prevent this industrial flagship from sinking. Yet no one anticipated that, just two years later, Siemens Energy would emerge as a winner of the AI wave: Its share price surged over tenfold—making it the top-performing stock in the entire DAX index. Backlogged orders soared past the historic record of €146 billion, with delivery timelines stretching into 2030. How did money lost through sheer misjudgment suddenly return—courtesy of sheer luck? 01 The Collapse of the Wind Power Gamble To understand Siemens Energy’s crisis, we must revisit the 2016 merger. That year, Siemens merged its wind power division with Spanish turbine giant Gamesa to form Siemens Gamesa—a behemoth rivaling Denmark’s Vestas and poised to become an energy titan. But soon after this aggressive consolidation, the company confronted both ‘immediate woes’ and ‘long-term anxieties.’ In 2023, Siemens Gamesa’s onshore turbines suffered a large-scale quality crisis: systematic defects emerged in blades and main bearings, causing failure rates to spike sharply—this was the immediate woe. These quality issues not only incurred over $1 billion in emergency repair costs but also caused its hard-earned reputation to collapse almost overnight. Orders were canceled, contracts breached, and the share price plummeted. The deeper, more structural crisis, however, was China’s wind turbine manufacturers sweeping global markets—not only with cost advantages, but also rapidly improving product performance. Siemens Gamesa’s losses continued to widen, ultimately dragging down Siemens Energy’s creditworthiness. Banks refused to renew loans; investors fled en masse; and the company faced a severe liquidity shortfall. Still, as a century-old industrial powerhouse, Siemens Energy retained substantial underlying value. After careful deliberation, the German government stepped in with state-backed guarantees to buy the company some breathing room. 02 When the West Fails, the East Shines While Siemens Gamesa sank deeper into crisis, another division within Siemens Energy was quietly gathering strength—the gas turbine and grid equipment business. At the height of ESG fervor, gas turbines were widely dismissed as a ‘transitional technology’ or even a ‘sunset asset’—unsexy, ungreen, and politically inconvenient compared to renewable electricity. Yet it possessed one irreplaceable core advantage: reliability. Wind and solar power fluctuate dramatically; gas turbines, by contrast, deliver uninterrupted 24/7 power, with rapid start-stop capability and extremely high power density—making them the optimal solution for industrial-grade, stable electricity supply. This is critically important for AI data centers, which demand round-the-clock, millisecond-level stable baseload power. Power infrastructure construction is second nature in China—familiar, routine, and executed at ‘China speed.’ But in the United States, it’s anything but. Grid interconnection approvals in the U.S. routinely take five years or longer; nuclear plant construction cycles are even longer. Meanwhile, AI development—and tech giants’ rollout of data centers—proceeds on a timescale measured in days.

Zhong Rong Review | Siemens to Sell Part of Its Stake in Siemens Energy; China Construction Bank Fund to Appoint New President

Zhang Yiming Going to Hong Kong to Launch a VC Firm? At the end of 2024, the most significant news in the investment community broke: Cool River Venture HK Limited—founded by Zhang Yiming, co-founder of ByteDance—officially obtained Hong Kong’s Type 9 license (Asset Management License). With this license, the firm is now authorized to provide asset management services in Hong Kong. Economist Song Qinghui commented: ‘Zhang Yiming’s acquisition of Hong Kong’s Type 9 license means Cool River Venture can now offer asset management services in the region—and further expand its operations and execute global financial market strategies through this platform, highlighting its ambitious aspirations in the financial sector.’ A seasoned investor even described Zhang Yiming’s foray into finance as possessing ‘ Industry Research on Neuromorphic Computing: A New Pathway for AI Computation Upstream enterprises in the neuromorphic computing industry primarily include semiconductor material suppliers for chip fabrication, other semiconductor-related suppliers, and memristor R&D and manufacturing firms. Semiconductor material suppliers—upstream players in the neuromorphic computing value chain—include TSMC and SMIC; lithography equipment manufacturers include ASML; and emerging memristor manufacturers include Samsung and Toshiba. Midstream enterprises comprise research institutions, neuromorphic perception companies, and neuromorphic chip companies—all of which embed neuromorphic computing capabilities into chips to develop neuromorphic or neuro-inspired chips. Neuromorphic perception companies include SynSense Technology; neuromorphic chip companies include Intel, Qualcomm, and Lingxi Technology; and key research institutions mainly consist of universities and research institutes. Downstream applications span automotive electronics, smart home devices, intelligent security systems, and drones—primarily served by two categories of enterprises: equipment manufacturers and software developers. Equipment manufacturers produce devices incorporating neuromorphic chips—such as DJI Innovation and Hikvision; software developers provide supporting tools for neuromorphic chip applications—including software development kits (SDKs) and application programming interfaces (APIs)—with major players including Meta, Intel, and the South Lake Institute of China Electronics Technology Group Corporation. 【Key News Recap】 1. Siemens to Sell Part of Its Stake in Siemens Energy To raise approximately $10 billion for its acquisition of U.S. software company Altair, Siemens plans to sell part of its stake in Siemens Energy over the coming months. CFO Ralf Thomas told media that Siemens aims to divest roughly 6% of its shares in the energy technology company—valued at around €2.5 billion—by the end of September next year. Siemens currently holds approximately 17% of Siemens Energy, having spun off its turbine business in 2020. 2. China Construction Bank Fund to Appoint New President China Construction Bank Fund—a leading publicly offered fund manager and a bank-affiliated fund company—is set to welcome a new president. In recent years, the fund has grappled with challenges including underweight equity investments and declining profitability, urgently requiring a fresh strategic direction. Now, Xie Haiyu—widely hailed as a ‘female investment ace’—is set to assume the presidency. Whether she can lead China Construction Bank Fund out of its current ‘imbalance’ remains to be seen. 3. EU Continues Pressuring Apple to Open Core Features to Competitors The European Commission is intensifying pressure on Apple to further open up iPhone’s operating system to competitors—an action prompting Apple to complain that Meta Platforms’ demands would infringe upon user privacy.

Bankers Prepare €7 Billion Debt for Siemens Energy Unit Stake Sale

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Bankers are arranging up to €7 billion in debt financing to support the potential sale of Siemens Energy’s steam turbines business to private equity firms. The division could be valued at over €10 billion as Siemens streamlines its focus on power generation.

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