What if you bought Siemens in 2000?
World · Germany. The hindsight answer, year by year, against the only benchmark that matters.
Could you have picked it? Play2.6× · S&P 500 same money: $4,626
$1,000 in Siemens at the start of 2000 would be worth about $2,556 today. A plain S&P 500 index fund over the same years would have made more — the boring option won.
The story
Siemens is the Munich-based industrial conglomerate behind trains, factory automation, power equipment and medical scanners. At the 2000 tech peak it was valued as a telecom equipment company, then more than halved. In the mid-2000s it sold its mobile phone business to BenQ, which collapsed soon after.
The more serious crisis was a bribery scandal. Investigations revealed that Siemens had paid bribes worldwide to win contracts, and in 2008 it agreed to pay fines of about $1.6 billion in the US and Germany, then a record. New leadership overhauled compliance and began reshaping the company. Over the following years Siemens spun off lighting as Osram in 2013, listed its healthcare business as Siemens Healthineers in 2018, and spun off Siemens Energy in 2020. What remained was a more focused technology company specialising in industrial software and automation, which investors valued more highly. After years in a range, the shares broke out in the 2020s and more than doubled from their 2000 level.
The lesson: Breaking up a sprawling conglomerate can narrow the conglomerate discount, as focused businesses often attract higher valuations than complex ones.
$1,000 invested at the start of each year
| Bought in | Price then | Worth today | S&P 500 would be | Multiple |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2000 | $90.00 | $2,556 | $4,626 | 2.6× |
| 2003 | $45.00 | $5,111 | $7,727 | 5.1× |
| 2005 | $62.00 | $3,710 | $5,763 | 3.7× |
| 2007 | $75.00 | $3,067 | $4,789 | 3.1× |
| 2008 | $108 | $2,130 | $4,626 | 2.1× |
| 2010 | $65.00 | $3,538 | $6,071 | 3.5× |
| 2012 | $75.00 | $3,067 | $5,312 | 3.1× |
| 2015 | $95.00 | $2,421 | $3,301 | 2.4× |
| 2018 | $118 | $1,949 | $2,519 | 1.9× |
| 2020 | $118 | $1,949 | $2,092 | 1.9× |
green = beat the S&P 500 · red = lost money
Best entry point in our set: 2003, turning $1,000 into $5,111. The S&P 500 from that same year: $7,727.
Now try it without hindsight. The wheel decides the year and the asset class, you pick the position, ten seconds a pick, and we simulate to today. Siemens is one of 258 positions on the wheel — including the ones that went to zero.
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