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| Alstom Chairman and Chief Executive Patrick Kron leaves the company's annual results presentation at the company headquarters in Levallois-Perret, near Paris, May 7, 2014. Alstom, the ailing French industrial engineering group facing a politically charged takeover battle for its power business, scrapped its dividend on Wednesday as it said it burned cash and saw orders fall 10 percent in its full year. |
(Reuters) - Alstom CEO Patrick Kron told an investor conference that Germany's Siemens could "dream" of swapping assets with the French engineering group, Exane BNP Paribas wrote in a note on Thursday. "They want our gas activities... and we should take their Transport business...well they are allowed to dream. At the end of the day, despite some impressions to the contrary, it will be the shareholders who decide," Kron reportedly told the broker's European Seminar on Wednesday. An Alstom spokeswoman declined to comment. Alstom's board is due to decide by Monday between a 12.4-billion-euro ($16.8 billion) cash offer for its power arm from U.S. group General Electric and a competing proposal from Siemens and Japan's Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (MHI). Kron said the board will review the offers based on their economics, feasibility, execution risks and stakeholders' views, the note added.
