Siemens is set to conclude internal preparations to sell its health care unit by the end of March of next year, the chief executive officer told CNBC Thursday.
"We have a fascinating health care business," Joe Kaeser, CEO Siemens told CNBC, "and are going to float the business ... because we do believe this is an attractive market and we want to keep control of that business going forward."
The German industrial group announced in August . At the time the firm said it expected to value the business at up to 40 billion euros ($47 billion). However, Kaeser told CNBC that the firm will only go to the market when it sees an "optimal timing."
"I want to make sure that my company is ready, that we go whenever it is an optimal timing," he said.
"So we are going to be done latest by March 2018 with our internal preparations and then we will look into the market, what it does and that the options are, and we'll take it from there," Kaeser added.
As a preparation for the IPO, Siemens announced Thursday the appointment of Jochen Schmitz as the new chief financial officer of its health care business.
Siemens reported Thursday an increase in net profits during its fiscal fourth quarter of 2017. Despite some issues at its wind energy and gas and power businesses, the firm saw higher profits and revenues from a year ago.
Here are some of the key metrics:
- Revenue: 22.299 billion euros vs 21.953 billion euros last year
- Profits: 2.197 billion euros, versus 2.448 billion last year
- Net income: 1.293 billion euros vs 1.176 billion euros last year
Kaeser told CNBC that it was a "good" quarter and the company achieved "everything we promised" for 2017.
"We have a structural challenge to overcome in the power generation business," he noted, "We are actively tackling the problem we are going to fix it during the course of 2018."