Major changes at Infineon
Infineon, the German semiconductor company, announced that CEO Wolfgang Ziebart will resign on 1st June, following a unanimous supervisory board vote of confidence in Chairman Max Dietrich Kley. Peter Bauer, a member of the executive board and head of Infineon’s profitable automotive chip business, will take over.
Following a bad Monday, Infineon shares recovered slightly at the news.
Ziebart, whose background was in the automobile industry, was appointed CEO in September 2004. He was sunk by the failure of the 2006 spin-off of DRAM memory chip maker Qimonda, which left Infineon holding 77 percent of a company whose losses sometimes exceeded its revenues.
Qimonda accounted for Infineon’s losses of nearly 1.4 billion euros ($2.21 billion) in the second quarter of its current fiscal year, the fifth consecutive quarterly loss. Without Qimonda, Infineon said it would have posted a profit of 19 million euros ($29.9 million).
Over the weekend, Die Welt reported that take-over specialists Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. were in advanced talks with Infineon. The report said KKR could take a 40 percent to 50 percent stake in Infineon by issuing new shares, and then combine it with Dutch chip maker NXP.
