The ex-Siemens boss will soon start at Caixabank.
(Photo: imago/photothek)
Madrid The former CEO of Siemens, Peter Loescher, is to become a member of the supervisory board of Spain’s major bank Caixabank. This emerges from the bank’s invitation to the institute’s general meeting, which will be held in Valencia at the end of March.
For Loescher it will be the second supervisory board mandate in Spain: He already sits on the supervisory board of the telecom giant Telefónica and is head of the supervisory board of Telefónica Deutschland Holding AG.
Caixabank emerged from the merger of Caixabank and Bankia in 2020, making it the market leader in Spain at the time. Like other banks, the institute is currently benefiting from rising interest rates. Caixabank’s net profit rose by around 30 percent to 3.15 billion euros last year – albeit adjusted for the effects of the merger with Bankia, which caused profits to skyrocket in 2021. With this effect, net profit would have fallen by 40 percent.
Great international experience
The bank says that Loescher will be appointed to the board because of his professional career and experience. The 65-year-old’s experience includes working in numerous industries: Löscher started his career in 1987 at the then pharmaceutical company Hoechst, for which he worked in Spain, Japan, Great Britain and the USA.
The USA then became a kind of second home for him – he was a member of the central board of General Electric and a board member of the US pharmaceutical company Merck before he became CEO of Siemens in 2007. People around him describe Loescher as determined, but polite and friendly in his dealings, which shows his extensive international experience.
Loescher currently sits not only on the Telefónica supervisory board, but also on the control board of Philips in the Netherlands. He gave up his position as head of the supervisory board of the Swiss industrial group Sulzer last year. For one of Sulzer’s main shareholders, the Russian oligarch Viktor Vekselberg, Loescher worked for two years from 2014 as CEO of the Swiss company Renova Management, through which Vekselberg organized his empire.
advocate of good governance
In addition, Löscher is currently investing in start-ups, primarily American biotech and medical technology companies. Spain plays a very special role. Löscher has close ties to the country not only professionally, but also privately: his wife Marta is Spanish, his father-in-law Augusti Montal was president of FC Barcelona before it got into trouble. Löscher shares a great love for football with him.
In Teléfonica circles it is said that Loescher, as head of the supervisory board of the German subsidiary, primarily promoted the topic of ESG (environmental, social, governance) and was on a roadshow in the USA with Telefónica Germany boss Markus Haas in 2021. “The issue of governance is particularly close to his heart,” says corporate circles.
It was no different during his time at Siemens: As CEO, Loescher had to introduce solid governance structures in the company after the corruption scandal. Companions pay him a lot of respect for this. It is said that he made compliance at Siemens the industry benchmark. From an entrepreneurial point of view, however, his performance at Siemens is controversial: After two profit warnings within a year, he had to leave the group.
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