Siemens will replace CEO Peter Loescher after Europe’s biggest engineering company repeatedly missed profit targets and charges mounted for failed power and train projects.

Siemens’s supervisory board will decide on the “early departure” of Mr Loescher on Wednesday , and the “appointment of a member of the managing board as president and CEO”, the Munich- based company said yesterday.

Chief financial officer Joe Kaeser is likely to take the helm after supervisory board members met yesterday, according to three people familiar with the talks.

Mr Loescher (55), appointed in 2007 to clean up after the biggest corruption scandal in German history, last Thursday cut a profit forecast for the fifth time in his six-year tenure. The Austrian native, who joined Siemens from drugmaker Merck as the first CEO hired from outside the company, has presided over a failed push into environmentally-friendly energy. He also had to write down the value of several acquisitions.

Mr Kaeser (56) joined Siemens in 1980, holding a series of administrative and financial jobs. He was promoted to the top finance job in 2006. – Bloomberg