Siemens 2008 Annual Report Download - page 176

80 Management’s discussion and analysis
Dividend
Siemens AG, the parent company of businesses discussed in this report, recorded net income under German
accounting principles (HGB) of €1.619 billion for scal 2008 compared to €2.317 billion for the previous year.
At the Annual Shareholders’ Meeting scheduled for January 27, 2009, the Managing Board, in agreement with
the Supervisory Board, will submit the following proposal: to pay €1.60 per share as a dividend, which aggre-
gates to an expected total payout of €1.378 billion. The prior-year dividend was also €1.60 per share. The amount
attributable to shares of stock of Siemens AG held in treasury by the Company as of the date, as well as attribut-
able to treasury stock retired by the date, of the Annual Shareholders’ Meeting shall be carried forward.
Liquidity and capital resources
Financial strategy and capital structure
Financial strategy
Siemens is committed to a strong nancial prole, which gives us the nancial exibility to achieve our growth
and portfolio optimization goals.
Our principal source of Company nancing is cash inows from operating activities. Our Corporate Treasury
generally manages cash and cash equivalents for the entire Company and has primary responsibility for raising
funds in the capital markets for the entire Company, except in countries with conicting capital market controls.
In these countries, the relevant Siemens subsidiary companies obtain nancing primarily from local banks. At
September 30, 2008, Siemens held €6.893 billion in cash and cash equivalents in various currencies, of which
approximately 76% were managed by Corporate Treasury. Corporate Treasury carefully manages investments of
cash and cash equivalents subject to strict credit requirements and counterparty limits. In addition, Corporate
Treasury lends funds via intragroup nancing to the Sectors and Cross-Sector Businesses.
In addition to the sources of liquidity described below, we monitor funding options available in the capital mar-
kets and trends in the availability of funds as well as the cost of such funding, with a view to maintaining nan-
cial exibility and limiting repayment risk. We also closely monitor developments in global capital markets,
including the recent deterioration of these markets in connection with the global nancial crisis, in order to
evaluate possible consequences on our nancial and risk prole.