Siemens Healthineers Pins Hopes on AI and Spin-Off as Tariffs and China Headwinds Bite

The gap between Siemens Healthineers’ strategic ambitions and its stock market performance has rarely been wider. While the medical technology group rolls out cutting-edge digital initiatives and hires a high-profile artificial intelligence specialist from Google, its shares are trading near 52-week lows, battered by US tariffs, a sluggish diagnostics business in China, and lingering uncertainty over its long-awaited separation from parent Siemens.

Investors are now looking to the second-quarter results due on 7 May for signs of a turnaround — and, crucially, for a concrete timeline on the planned spin-off.

A New AI Chief and a Digital Vision

Martin Stumpe, the former Google Brain and NASA scientist who joined as chief technology officer earlier this year, made his public debut at the DMEA conference in Berlin. There he unveiled the company’s “Patient Twinning” concept — an ambitious plan to create digital models of patients to sharpen diagnostic accuracy. Stumpe, who previously founded Google’s Cancer Pathology project and worked at Danaher, did not provide specific product launch dates, but the presentation marked the first clear articulation of the group’s AI-driven future.

The digital push extends beyond the conference floor. Siemens Healthineers has added five new partners in wound management and AI-assisted diagnostics to its digital platform, while the company is also collaborating with Roche and Eli Lilly on blood-based biomarkers for early Alzheimer’s detection. In Tennessee, it has acquired a 12-hectare site for a new research and production centre expected to break ground this summer.

Clinical Progress in the Therapy Business

There is also encouraging news from the clinical front. The FAST-III study has confirmed the safety of a minimally invasive technique for guiding vascular treatments, bolstering the advanced therapies segment that management sees as a key growth driver going forward.

The Weight of Tariffs, Currency, and China

Yet these positive signals are being drowned out by a chorus of headwinds. The diagnostics division — a core part of the business — shrank by 3 percent in the first quarter, hit hard by China’s anti-corruption campaign, which has centralised procurement and slowed local demand.

Should investors sell immediately? Or is it worth buying Siemens Healthineers?

The pain does not stop there. New US tariffs are expected to knock around €400 million off the company’s adjusted EBIT this year, while unfavourable currency movements will cost an additional €200 million to €250 million. Despite these pressures, management is sticking to its full-year forecast of 5 to 6 percent revenue growth and adjusted earnings per share of between €2.20 and €2.40.

In the first quarter, adjusted earnings per share fell 3 percent to €0.49, even as revenue edged up 3.8 percent.

A Stock Under Siege

The market has taken a dim view. Shares now trade at €36.32, dangerously close to their 52-week trough and roughly 27 percent below the year’s high. The stock has lost about 18 percent since January and sits nearly 17 percent below its 200-day moving average. Technical indicators suggest the selling may be overdone — the relative strength index stands at 25.5, deep in oversold territory — but a meaningful bounce has yet to materialise.

The Spin-Off Conundrum

The biggest overhang, however, is structural. Siemens AG currently holds just under 67 percent of Healthineers and plans to distribute 30 percent of those shares directly to its own shareholders, reducing its stake to below 20 percent. But a self-imposed deadline to provide concrete spin-off details by early in the second quarter of 2026 has already been missed. A shareholder vote is now pencilled in for Siemens’ annual general meeting in February 2027 — the earliest possible date.

The central obstacle is a €13.9 billion debt pile that Siemens currently guarantees. After a spin-off, Healthineers would have to shoulder that burden alone, raising questions about its credit profile and financial flexibility. Until the vote takes place, the parent company’s guarantee remains in place, but the uncertainty is weighing on the stock.

What Investors Want to Hear

When Siemens Healthineers reports second-quarter numbers on 7 May, the focus will be on two things: whether the imaging and therapy businesses can offset the weakness in diagnostics, and whether management can finally provide a credible roadmap for the spin-off. Without clarity on both fronts, the disconnect between the company’s technological promise and its market valuation is likely to persist.