HSBC Global Viewpoint Sep 21, 2026
With Andreas Meier, Vice President for Guarantees and Documentary Instruments at Siemens Energy
Siemens Energy posted a multi-billion loss in the middle of 2023 on technology problems in some of its onshore turbine models, and the thing that nearly stopped the company was not the loss itself. It was that the guarantees its customers require before they will sign anything became impossible to get.
A large industrial group in trouble is usually described in terms of its debt. Andreas Meier's account is about an instrument that never makes the headline number: the advance payments and performance guarantees a buyer of large-scale energy infrastructure demands before a contract exists at all. Without them, he says, there is no order to book.
"There are no ifs and buts. It's essentially impossible."
Meier has spent more than 30 years in the energy business at Siemens and Siemens Energy, he runs guarantees and documentary instruments for the company, and he joined the team that was already fighting the crisis when the loss was posted. He then helped negotiate the state-backed facility that followed and the bank facility that replaced it.
The full interview is covered here so you can skip it.
Here are the 8 lessons that matter.
Key Takeaways
Guarantees, not credit, were the binding constraint — without advance payment and performance guarantees Siemens Energy cannot book an order at all
Providing them had never been a problem for a company with Siemens' history, which is why it became the bottleneck the moment the crisis hit
The German government took two thirds of the backstop and the banks one third, which is what persuaded the banks to take the other third
The facility went from ideation to signature in 6 months, against a profit warning in June 2023
A dividend ban was one of the strings attached, and it became a real problem once the company recovered enough to want to pay one
The replacement is a 9 billion facility with a consortium of 23 banks, and it was significantly oversubscribed
Resilience now means committed facilities alongside bilateral relationships, because a bilateral line is the kind that breaks when a crisis arrives
Meier's own account of the worst of it is about learning speed rather than strategy — how fast he could learn, and how fast he could transfer it to a new team
1. The Turbine Crisis
Kai Fehr, who runs HSBC's sector and partnerships businesses globally, opened by quoting Siemens Energy's chief executive calling what happened an existential crisis, and asked Meier to explain it. Meier put it in one year and one product line.
Technology problems in the onshore turbines produced a multi-billion loss
Going back into the year 2023, it turned out and we faced significant technology issues with some of our onshore turbine models. The height of the crisis probably occurred in the mid of 2023, where we had to post a multi-billion loss to our profit and loss statement, which really was the starting point of this crisis, as our CEO mentioned.
Andreas Meier
2. What It Felt Like
Fehr asked whether it had been personally difficult or something Meier had mapped out and worked through. The answer was neither, in a way: he arrived into a team that had already started dealing with it, so his problem was speed.
The sleepless nights were about how fast he could learn
So my sleepless nights, I would say, were more on how do I learn as quickly as I can, how do I transfer that learning onto my team, onto my new team, and how can I motivate the team to go this extra mile that seemed at times impossible, but ultimately, I guess, we persevered.
Andreas Meier
What he brought to it was change management experience from earlier in his career, applied to getting a team to run at the pace the crisis demanded.
3. No Guarantees, No Orders
Fehr stopped to explain to the audience why performance guarantees and bid bonds matter so much to a business like this one. Meier's answer is the mechanism the whole episode rests on, and it is short.
Without guarantees there is no order to book
We provide large-scale energy infrastructure. We have long delivery times. So without advance payment and performance guarantees, it is essentially impossible for us to book an order with a customer.
Andreas Meier
There is no version of the business that works around it
There are no ifs and buts. It's essentially impossible.
Andreas Meier
The part he draws out is that this had never been a constraint before. For a company with Siemens' history, providing guarantees was routine — until the loss landed, at which point the routine thing became the thing holding everything else up.
4. Never Waste A Crisis
Fehr moved to the structure, the pressure points and how the German government got involved, framing it as the facility of nearly 11 billion. Meier started with a line he credits to Siemens Energy's finance chief.
The CFO's instruction was to use the crisis
I quote our CFO with a beautiful little statement that was, never waste a crisis.
Andreas Meier
What that bought, in his telling, was internal clarity the company had never had to produce before: exactly what guarantee volumes it needed, when, and where. With that in hand it could approach the government, which was willing to help because Siemens Energy was treated as a European factor in keeping the energy transition moving.
The state took two thirds of the backstop so the banks would take one
And we could convince the government, we could convince partner banks, a consortium of banks to actually move into this new structure with us, whereby the government took over two thirds of the backstop and banks were only burdened with one third.
Andreas Meier
He calls that split a trust-inducing measure — the thing that made the partner banks willing to go the distance.
5. Six Months To Wet Ink
Fehr asked how long it took door to door. Meier gave the two dates and the elapsed time without hedging.
Profit warning in June 2023, signed six months later
Well, let me say the crisis event, the profit warning happened in June 23. The facility was put together pretty much exactly six months later. So I would say from ideation through formation, negotiation, ultimately wet ink, six months.
Andreas Meier
6. Why It Had To Be A Bridge
Asked why the facility was structured as a bridge, Meier first pushed back on the word, saying it does not do the structure justice. Then he gave the reason the company treated it as temporary from the first day: state help arrives with conditions a recovering company cannot live with.
A ban on paying dividends was one of the strings
Such things is, for example, a ban for the company to pay dividends to investors, which is a significant problem, particularly once the company evolved again, recovered again and was able to pay such dividends.
Andreas Meier
The cost of the facility was significant too, so the plan from the start was to replace it as soon as the balance sheet had recovered from the 2023 shortfall. His own verdict on whether it did: "And oh boy, it has recovered."
7. The 9B Replacement
Fehr asked what had happened to the facility since. It has been replaced, by a bank syndicate with no state involvement.
23 banks, and the book was significantly oversubscribed
We went out and launched the new 9 billion facility with a consortium of 23 banks. And I guess the performance and the perception of the performance in the market was so good that it was significantly oversubscribed.
Andreas Meier
8. Designing For The Next One
The last exchange is about what the company changed so it never has to do this again. Fehr framed resilience as a supply-chain idea and asked how Meier looks at it in his own business. Meier's answer is that resilience belongs in the financial strategy, not only in the factory.
The fix is a mix of facility types, not a better bilateral relationship
So what we've done is we have essentially now built a mix of different kinds of facilities, not only the typical one-to-one relationships, bilateral relationships that may break once a crisis hits, but also committed facilities that actually help to protect you as a corporate against a rainy day, so to speak, or against a crisis.
Andreas Meier
The distinction is the whole point. A bilateral line is the kind a bank can decline to renew at exactly the moment it is needed; a committed facility is the one that survives a rainy day. Guarantees, he said again, are the lifeblood of the company, so the resilience factors have to be priced into the trade finance rather than assumed.
Bonus Insights
The host's closing argument is about the bank's side of it
Fehr closed with a point from his own background in sales. He said the industry talks a lot about customer intimacy, and that an intimate relationship between a bank and a corporate is probably the most important thing in a crisis, because it is what lets each side know what the other actually needs. He added that HSBC's global reach is of essential value in everyday business, and that this conversation was about something beyond everyday business.
Thirty years in one industry
Meier introduced himself by saying he has been with Siemens and Siemens Energy in the energy business for more than 30 years, which is the credential he offered rather than a job title.
Meier's bottom line is that the crisis was survivable because the company worked out precisely what guarantee capacity it needed before it asked anyone for help, and that the lasting change is structural: the guarantee lines that are the lifeblood of the business are now a deliberate mix of committed and bilateral facilities rather than a set of relationships that happened to work in good weather.
Products, Companies & Tools Mentioned
Siemens Energy (Meier's employer. Technology problems in some of its onshore turbine models produced the multi-billion loss in 2023 that started the crisis)
HSBC (The bank that publishes this series; Fehr runs its sector and partnerships businesses globally and made the case for close bank-corporate relationships in a crisis)
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