FRANKFURT (Reuters) – SAP <SAPG.DE> surprised markets with news Chief Executive Leo Apotheker had resigned and two board members — Bill McDermott and Jim Hagemann Snabe — were taking over as co-CEOs.

Some analysts see the new leadership team as well qualified, but others believe the abrupt change at the helm could slow down the world’s largest business software firm’s decision-making and reduce its focus on performance.

SELL

“We are concerned that the co-leadership might slow down the decision-taking process,” Merck Finck analyst Theo Kitz wrote, rating the stock “sell.”

FRANKFURT (Reuters) – Europe’s solar industry should prepare to defend its lucrative market in Germany without becoming protectionist as incentive cuts loom there, the head of the world’s largest photovoltaic industry association said.

Feed-in tariffs –the prices utilities have to pay generators of renewable energy — are reduced annually in Germany. However, the government said last month it would make additional one-off cuts in April and July, arguing the sector was still overly subsidized.

“Overall, protectionist measures should not be considered. It usually does not improve the situation. But when you are building an industry with money from electricity consumers, as is the case in Germany, you should at least think about some options,” Winfried Hoffmann, president of the European Photovoltaic Industry Association (EPIA), told Reuters in an interview.

Hoffmann, who is also chief technology officer for Applied Materials’ energy and environmental solutions and display business, said EPIA was against the cuts, echoing the opposition of many solar company executives in Germany.

FRANKFURT, Feb 8 (Reuters) – SAP <SAPG.DE> surprised markets with news Chief Executive Leo Apotheker had resigned and two board members — Bill McDermott and Jim Hagemann Snabe — were taking over as co-CEOs. [ID:nLDE6170B2]

Some analysts see the new leadership team as well qualified, but others believe the abrupt change at the helm could slow down the world’s largest business software firm’s decision-making and reduce its focus on performance.

SELL

“We are concerned that the co-leadership might slow down the decision-taking process,” Merck Finck analyst Theo Kitz wrote, rating the stock “sell”.

FRANKFURT (Reuters) – German solar company Phoenix Solar will strive to pay a dividend even though painful cuts in solar incentives are looming in Germany, the company’s chief executive told Reuters.

“We should not punish our shareholders for undesirable political developments,” Andreas Haenel said in an interview late on Tuesday.

“Therefore, we will try hard to pay out a dividend for 2009, too,” he added. Phoenix Solar paid a dividend of 0.30 euros ($0.417) per share for 2008.

The German government is planning to slash feed-in tariffs — incentives utilities are obliged to pay to generators of solar power — by 15 percent from April in what would be a major blow to the already crisis-ridden industry.

FRANKFURT (Reuters) – SolarWorld said it will focus on organic growth rather than on takeovers, as Germany’s biggest solar company by sales braces for a slide in prices for solar components.

“Our main priority is organic growth and takeovers are not on top of our agenda,” Chief Financial Officer Philipp Koecke said in an interview on Tuesday. SolarWorld last year unveiled a strategy to expand its solar module capacities at a time when many players in the industry are still grappling with free-falling prices for solar components and tight financing conditions.

SolarWorld, however, has held up rather well, mainly due to its diversified product range, while pure module and cell makers such as Solon and Q-Cells have piled up large losses in the past year.

SolarWorld in early January reported provisional 2009 sales of 1.010 billion euros ($1.41 billion), slightly exceeding its outlook for 1 billion euros.

FRANKFURT (Reuters) – German bioethanol producer CropEnergies sees operating profit rising substantially in the coming fiscal year, the company’s chief financial officer told Reuters on Tuesday.

“We expect a significantly better operating result in 2010/11 and we will be well above the 18.2 million euros ($25.32 million) we had in 2008/09,” Joachim Lutz said in an interview.

“Regarding sales in 2010/2011, we are confident about a target corridor of 400-500 million euros,” he added.

CropEnergies — a subsidiary of Suedzucker, Europe’s largest sugar company — has so far not given a concrete outlook for the fiscal year 2010/11.

FRANKFURT, Jan 29 (Reuters) – BMW <BMWG.DE>, the world’s biggest premium automaker, forecast a modest rise in car sales this year and confirmed it expected a 2009 pretax profit despite the global economic crisis.

“We fully intend to remain the world’s leading provider of premium vehicles in 2010 and plan to increase sales within the single-digit percentage range to over 1.3 million units,” Chief Executive Norbert Reithofer said in a statement on Friday.

BMW, which is pinning special hopes on the latest version of the 5 Series which hits the market in late March, forecast record sales again this year in China, Brazil and India.

It said it expected to return to growth in the United States this year.

FRANKFURT (Reuters) – Investors looking for fresh opportunities in the volatile renewable energy sector should look at stocks in the geothermal industry, a VCH Investment Group fund manager told Reuters on Thursday.

“Geothermal energy, albeit still a tiny market itself, is a young growth area but a strong one. You can see that already happening in the United States, where there is large geothermal activity,” Olaf Koester said in an interview.

Geothermal power — which, along with solar thermal power, is part of the second generation of renewable energy sources — uses the earth’s inner heat and turns it into electricity by using specially designed power plants.

Koester’s fund — which quadrupled its volume in 2009 and stands at 10 million euros ($14.04 million) — solely invests in global renewable energy stocks, including more traditional fields such as photovoltaic, wind and water.

FRANKFURT (Reuters) – Solar company Conergy paved the way for striking a refinancing deal by the end of March thanks to a breakthrough settlement with wafer supplier MEMC, its CEO told Reuters on Monday.

The news led to a relief rally in the highly volatile penny-stock, rising as much as 31 percent on Monday to 1.019 euros a share. At 0956 GMT, shares in the company were 19.3 percent higher.

“We have laid the foundation for talks with the banks. We aim for a refinancing deal by the end of the first quarter,” Dieter Ammer said in an interview.

Conergy late Sunday said it reached an out-of-court settlement regarding a contract dispute with U.S. peer MEMC.

FRANKFURT/HONG KONG (Reuters) – A potential deep cut in feed-in tariffs in Germany will hit solar companies around the world and increases pressure on large players to reduce exposure to the world’s largest photovoltaic market.

Analysts say that lower prices could result in a shakeout in the industry that drives higher cost players out of business and dissuades new entrants.

Shares in solar firms plummeted after a Reuters report that the German government plans to chop feed-in tariffs — prices utilities pay generators of renewable energy — as early as April, much more deeply and sooner than the market expected.

Analysts agree that the plans, which envisage a one-off cut of 16-17 percent on top of the 10 percent already set out in the German Renewable Act, will deal a major blow to the sector, which the German government thinks is overly subsidized now.