The FINANCIAL — A growing number of Siemens employees are becoming shareholders of their company: Worldwide, around 144,000 of the 343,000 active company employees are also company shareholders.
Since the Siemens Share Matching Plan was introduced in 2009 as an extra incentive to buy shares, the number of employee shareholders has climbed by more than half from 92,000 at the plan’s start. With the Share Matching Plan, employees who buy Siemens shares as part of the company’s share plans receive one additional share for every three shares they hold for three years. This year, Siemens issued around 549,000 matching shares worth roughly €52 million. This marked a 25-percent increase over the previous year’s total of 440,000 shares.
“Employees who are also owners of their company act with greater responsibility and motivation since they directly participate in the company’s development. The large number of participants in our share programs is welcome proof that we have further strengthened the ownership culture at Siemens and that our employees believe in the long-term success of our company,” said Siemens President and CEO Joe Kaeser.
Current and former employees hold around five percent of the Siemens shares and represent one of the company’s biggest shareholder groups, according to Siemens.
This year, Siemens issued the two-millionth matching share since the Share Matching Plan was introduced. At an employee town hall meeting in Turkey, Joe Kaeser symbolically presented this share to an employee who has been with Siemens since 1999 and is currently working in Human Resources. A total of 78,000 employees in 63 countries profited from this year’s issuance of matching shares.
Worldwide, more than 111,000 employees participated in the new 2015 tranche of the company’s share program, around four percent more than in the previous year.
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