ThyssenKrupp CEO Pledges New Era at Troubled Steelmaker
12/11/2012 - ThyssenKrupp chief executive Heinrich Hiesinger vowed to fix problems at Germany's biggest steelmaker after a disastrous overseas foray and corruption allegations led him to axe half his management board, Reuters reports.
ThyssenKrupp chief executive Heinrich Hiesinger vowed to fix problems at Germany's biggest steelmaker after a disastrous overseas foray and corruption allegations led him to axe half his management board.
"It is obvious that a great deal has gone wrong in the past," he told journalists at a news conference on Tuesday, the day after Thyssen reported a €4.7 billion (US$6.08 billion) annual loss mainly due to writedowns on steel mills in the United States and Brazil.
Thyssen also decided not to pay shareholders a dividend for the first time in its history.
The U.S. and Brazilian steel mills, which Thyssen is trying to sell, are an ill-fated project that has lost billions of euros and cost Hiesinger's predecessor Ekkehard Schulz and the company's steel chief Edwin Eichler their jobs.