Catastrophe claims and writedowns on investments in
sovereign bonds and banks were behind the profit fall revealed
by Europe’s biggest insurance group on Thursday. At 2.55 billion
euros ($3.38 billion) it also missed consensus by almost half a
billion euros.

Allianz said it would pay a dividend of 4.50 euros per
share, unchanged from a year earlier.

“2011 was a tough year,” Chief Executive Michael Diekmann
said in a statement.

Analysts said while such a high dividend payout ratio was
unsustainable, they saw Allianz’s decision to keep the dividend
stable as a sign of the company’s confidence in its future
earnings strength.

“We believe that Allianz wants to follow its peer group,
which so far also proposed unchanged dividends. However, given
the solid capitalisation of Allianz, we regard this as
unproblematic,” WestLB analyst Andreas Schaefer said.

Reinsurer Swiss Re earlier on Thursday raised its
dividend and said it tripled its profit for 2011 despite
unusually severe natural disasters, and said the current year
had started well with a rise in policy prices.

Allianz also forecast an improvement in 2012, saying its
operating profit would come in at about 8.2 billion euros, plus
or minus half a billion, compared with 2011 profit of 7.9
billion and consensus of almost 8.4 billion euros.

“We are expecting similar global economic conditions in 2012
with a moderate improvement in the second half of the year. The
first steps to stabilize the euro zone have already been
implemented successfully,” CEO Diekmann said.

It did not provide an outlook for net profit.

IMPAIRMENTS
Major insurers like Allianz and Axa were
hit directly last year by big damage claims from natural
catastrophes and writedowns on holdings of Greek government
bonds, while indirectly, concerns about the euro area debt
crisis held back sales of insurance investment products.

Allianz’s net impairment charges for the year more
than quadrupled to 1.93 billion euros, almost two thirds of
which were on equities.

Allianz’s holdings in lenders Commerzbank and
UniCredit, for instance, have lost more than half of
their market value over the past year as bank stocks tumbled.
The insurer also said it has written down its Greek government
bonds to 24.7 percent of their nominal value.

Shares of Allianz were indicated to open 0.9 percent lower,
while the German blue-chip index is seen up 0.1
percent, according to premarket data.

Allianz’s stock has lost about 15 percent of its value over
the past year, slightly lagging the STOXX Europe 600 insurance
index. Axa’s share has fallen by nearly 20 percent over
the same period.

Allianz trades at 7.7 times 12-month forward earnings, a
premium to Europe’s second biggest insurer, Axa, at a multiple
of 6.6, according to Thomson Reuters StarMine, which weights
analyst forecasts according to their track record.

Catastrophe claims and writedowns on investments in
sovereign bonds and banks were behind the profit fall revealed
by Europe’s biggest insurance group on Thursday. At 2.55 billion
euros ($3.38 billion) it also missed consensus by almost half a
billion euros.

Allianz said it would pay a dividend of 4.50 euros per
share, unchanged from a year earlier.

“2011 was a tough year,” Chief Executive Michael Diekmann
said in a statement.

Analysts said while such a high dividend payout ratio was
unsustainable, they saw Allianz’s decision to keep the dividend
stable as a sign of the company’s confidence in its future
earnings strength.

“We believe that Allianz wants to follow its peer group,
which so far also proposed unchanged dividends. However, given
the solid capitalisation of Allianz, we regard this as
unproblematic,” WestLB analyst Andreas Schaefer said.

Reinsurer Swiss Re earlier on Thursday raised its
dividend and said it tripled its profit for 2011 despite
unusually severe natural disasters, and said the current year
had started well with a rise in policy prices.

Allianz also forecast an improvement in 2012, saying its
operating profit would come in at about 8.2 billion euros, plus
or minus half a billion, compared with 2011 profit of 7.9
billion and consensus of almost 8.4 billion euros.

“We are expecting similar global economic conditions in 2012
with a moderate improvement in the second half of the year. The
first steps to stabilize the euro zone have already been
implemented successfully,” CEO Diekmann said.

It did not provide an outlook for net profit.

IMPAIRMENTS
Major insurers like Allianz and Axa were
hit directly last year by big damage claims from natural
catastrophes and writedowns on holdings of Greek government
bonds, while indirectly, concerns about the euro area debt
crisis held back sales of insurance investment products.

Allianz’s net impairment charges for the year more
than quadrupled to 1.93 billion euros, almost two thirds of
which were on equities.

Allianz’s holdings in lenders Commerzbank and
UniCredit, for instance, have lost more than half of
their market value over the past year as bank stocks tumbled.
The insurer also said it has written down its Greek government
bonds to 24.7 percent of their nominal value.

Shares of Allianz were indicated to open 0.9 percent lower,
while the German blue-chip index is seen up 0.1
percent, according to premarket data.

Allianz’s stock has lost about 15 percent of its value over
the past year, slightly lagging the STOXX Europe 600 insurance
index. Axa’s share has fallen by nearly 20 percent over
the same period.

Allianz trades at 7.7 times 12-month forward earnings, a
premium to Europe’s second biggest insurer, Axa, at a multiple
of 6.6, according to Thomson Reuters StarMine, which weights
analyst forecasts according to their track record.

($1 = 0.7552 euros)

(Reporting by Maria Sheahan; Editing by Andrew Callus)

Catastrophe claims and writedowns on investments in
sovereign bonds and banks were behind the profit fall revealed
by Europe’s biggest insurance group on Thursday. At 2.55 billion
euros ($3.38 billion) it also missed consensus by almost half a
billion euros.

Allianz said it would pay a dividend of 4.50 euros per
share, unchanged from a year earlier.

“2011 was a tough year,” Chief Executive Michael Diekmann
said in a statement.

Analysts said while such a high dividend payout ratio was
unsustainable, they saw Allianz’s decision to keep the dividend
stable as a sign of the company’s confidence in its future
earnings strength.

“We believe that Allianz wants to follow its peer group,
which so far also proposed unchanged dividends. However, given
the solid capitalisation of Allianz, we regard this as
unproblematic,” WestLB analyst Andreas Schaefer said.

Reinsurer Swiss Re earlier on Thursday raised its
dividend and said it tripled its profit for 2011 despite
unusually severe natural disasters, and said the current year
had started well with a rise in policy prices.

Allianz also forecast an improvement in 2012, saying its
operating profit would come in at about 8.2 billion euros, plus
or minus half a billion, compared with 2011 profit of 7.9
billion and consensus of almost 8.4 billion euros.

“We are expecting similar global economic conditions in 2012
with a moderate improvement in the second half of the year. The
first steps to stabilize the euro zone have already been
implemented successfully,” CEO Diekmann said.

It did not provide an outlook for net profit.

IMPAIRMENTS
Major insurers like Allianz and Axa were
hit directly last year by big damage claims from natural
catastrophes and writedowns on holdings of Greek government
bonds, while indirectly, concerns about the euro area debt
crisis held back sales of insurance investment products.

Allianz’s net impairment charges for the year more
than quadrupled to 1.93 billion euros, almost two thirds of
which were on equities.

Allianz’s holdings in lenders Commerzbank and
UniCredit, for instance, have lost more than half of
their market value over the past year as bank stocks tumbled.
The insurer also said it has written down its Greek government
bonds to 24.7 percent of their nominal value.

Shares of Allianz were indicated to open 0.9 percent lower,
while the German blue-chip index is seen up 0.1
percent, according to premarket data.

Allianz’s stock has lost about 15 percent of its value over
the past year, slightly lagging the STOXX Europe 600 insurance
index. Axa’s share has fallen by nearly 20 percent over
the same period.

Allianz trades at 7.7 times 12-month forward earnings, a
premium to Europe’s second biggest insurer, Axa, at a multiple
of 6.6, according to Thomson Reuters StarMine, which weights
analyst forecasts according to their track record.

Along with larger rivals Adidas and Nike,
Puma has enjoyed rising sales over the past year and reported
record 2011 sales of 3 billion euros ($3.9 billion), driven by
demand from Asia and Latin America.

Puma said it believed it can grow sales a high single-digit
percentage this year and next, and improve net profit by a
mid-single-digit percentage.

Puma shares were up 2.3 percent at 1250 GMT, with Adidas up
2.7 percent. “The Puma results were good and the upcoming Euro
2012 soccer tournament means the sector is in a good spot,” one
trader said.

Puma said it aimed to be the number three brand in soccer,
where it faces fierce competition from Adidas, Nike and Umbro.

While having signed up soccer stars such as Cesc Fàbregas of
Barcelona, Puma is only providing the kits for two teams during
Euro 2012 — the Czech Republic and Italy.

“We want to grow significantly in soccer,” chief executive
Franz Koch said, declining to specify targets.

U.S. STILL CHALLENGING

Demand in Latin America helped the group to a fourth-quarter
sales increase of 15.6 percent, Puma said, putting it on track
to reach its 2015 top-line target of 4 billion euros.

Sales in the Americas region, its biggest in revenue terms,
jumped 25.4 percent as customers in Latin America snapped up
Motorsport goods and lifestyle products helped improve quarterly
sales in the United States.

Puma said in October it needed to work harder in the United
States where sales fell in the third quarter, contrasting with
Adidas.

Koch said on Wednesday the U.S. market would still prove
challenging for Puma in 2012, with running and training products
not proving as popular as more fashionable lifestyle products.

Puma is controlled by French luxury goods group PPR
, which will report 2011 results on Thursday.

The discovery of more instances of cracked wing components was expected after Airbus (EAD.PA: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) said last week it had found the problem and predicted that until it had time to conduct repairs, a consistent pattern would emerge in further tests.

The European planemaker and airlines insist the world’s largest airliner is safe to fly, but are keen to move beyond the issue of small cracks in wing brackets that grabbed media attention and triggered compulsory checks last week.

The European Aviation Safety Agency ordered carriers to inspect almost a third of the global fleet of A380s, starting with six jets operated by Singapore Airlines, to check for one of two types of cracks that emerged in the space of weeks.

“We found cracks in all six,” the airline’s regional public relations manager for Europe, Peter Tomasch, said during a press event at Frankfurt Airport.

“Four we have repaired and they are flying again. The other two will follow in the coming days.”

EASA ordered the most urgent checks on aircraft that had carried out at least 1,800 takeoffs and landings; the six Singapore Airlines aircraft fell into this category.

The agency gave airlines six weeks to perform checks on a second category of jets that had between 1,300 and 1,800 takeoffs and landings, and did not order checks on less heavily used aircraft.

BOEING UNLIKELY TO BENEFIT

Analysts say publicity over the cracks is unlikely to benefit Airbus rival Boeing (BA.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) in the short term as airlines base their decisions on whether to buy the $390 million jet on the economics of its anticipated performance over many years.

However, some say the problems for Airbus and parent EADS (EAD.PA: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) could deepen if the response diverts scarce engineering resources or passengers balk at flying on the jet. So far no airlines operating the A380 have reported any dip in bookings.

In a bulletin known as an airworthiness directive, EASA last week gave Singapore Airlines, Dubai’s Emirates and Air France (AIRF.PA: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) six weeks to examine a further 14 aircraft.

In total, 68 superjumbos are in operation and a total of 253 have been sold.

Airbus says the cracks were discovered long before they posed a potential safety hazard, but it faces a bill for the checks and repairs which are being carried out at its expense.

“The inspection and repairs are well under way and continuing, in line with the airworthiness directive,” a spokeswoman said.

“Airbus is supplying repair kits as well as providing technical and logistical support to our customers”.

CRACKS BLAMED ON THREE ERRORS

Cracks on what Airbus describes as a handful of the 2,000 L-shaped brackets fixing exterior panels to the ribcage of each 9,100-square-foot wing first surfaced during repairs to a Qantas A380 that was damaged when an engine exploded in November 2010.

Those initial cracks were seen as a minor glitch in the aircraft’s metallic frame, but regulators decided to act when their discovery led engineers to a second and potentially more significant type of crack on the same type of bracket.

Airbus said last week that having understood the problem, it expected most of the aircraft being tested would show similar evidence of cracks and that it had found a simple repair.

It blamed the cracks on three errors: designers’ choice of aluminium alloy for some of the “rib feet” brackets, the use of a type of bolt that strained the metal and a way of closing tiny gaps that put too much stress on a handful of parts.

Besides the 24 hours required to empty fuel tanks and carry out visual inspections inside the UK-built wings, the largest ever made for a jetliner, no A380s have been grounded.

However, if unrepaired, the cracks could curtail the maximum service life allowed by regulators. After immediate repairs, Airbus plans to change the type of metal used to build the part.

PILOT REASSURANCE

Singapore Airlines’ chief pilot for the A380, Captain Robert Ting, flew to Germany on Sunday in one of the six aircraft that had to be fixed as a result of mandatory inspections so far and sought to reassure future passengers over the aircraft’s safety.

“I slept very well,” he said, referring to his peace of mind during a rest period while a second crew flew the aircraft.

“We have very competent authorities, and a very competent Airbus,” he told reporters in Frankfurt.

Ting piloted the first commercial A380 flight in 2007.

(Reporting by Maria Sheahan, Tim Hepher; Editing by Phil Berlowitz)

The softspoken and bespectacled Thorsten Heins, who had worked at Germany’s Siemens AG (SIEGn.DE: Quote, Profile, Research) for more than 20 years before RIM, failed to inspire Wall Street on Monday as he pledged to continue on the same path as his predecessors.

RIM shares closed down 8.5 percent at $15.56 on Nasdaq as the promotion of the largely unknown former chief operating officer was a disconcerting surprise for investors who were skeptical about his ability to turn around the Canadian group’s fortunes, particularly after Heins suggested RIM didn’t need new a strategic overhaul in his first TV appearances.

“I am a little concerned about some of the statements that the new CEO made around not needing drastic changes, focusing on marketing and having had issues with being too innovative,” Carolina Milanesi, analyst at research firm Gartner said.

For his part, Heins tried mightily to rally RIM employees, analysts and investors around the sudden executive suite change.

“We will take this to new heights,” he promised after taking over from co-CEOs Mike Lazaridis and Jim Balsillie, who finally bowed to investor pressure and resigned. “Innovation is endless, we will have a lot of fun.”

But taking a look at his past at former employer, German engineering group Siemens, Heins is not one for transformation.

Born in the small German town of Gifhorn in Lower-Saxony , Heins, 54, started working at Siemens straight out of university in 1984, where he also met his wife Petra, a mathematician and physicist, and where he stayed until his move to RIM in December 2007.

Described as easy to deal and work with, Heins steadily moved up the ranks and eventually was CTO of Siemens’ communications unit.

However, while colleagues attest to his calm and collected manner, Heins did not fit Siemens’ efforts to build a more dynamic image and an emotional brand.

The criticism back then was that his style and rhetoric would rather reinforce this to-be-shed engineering image rather than selling handsets as life-style products which was one of the strategic guidelines.

Someone who is deemed to be too boring even for Siemens may not be what activist investors had in mind when they called for a new, “transformational” leader to help RIM compete with Apple’s hugely popular iPhone and iPad and the slew of large-screen and powerful devices from Samsung and others using Google’s Android operating system.

NOT REALLY CEO MATERIAL?

Heins’ former boss at Siemens, Thomas Ganswindt, expressed his faith in Hains’ abilities and said that Heins was a “very strong” leader and someone “able to recognise what is needed by an ailing business”.

But Heins will have a lot of convincing to do.

One analyst who has met Heins but asked not to be named said RIM’s new CEO is “definitely competent” but not necessarily charismatic enough to lead a company.

“He doesn’t strike me or a lot of people as being CEO material,” said the analyst. “You don’t see him leading a group of people through the desert for 40 years.”

According to CCS Insight’s Ben Wood, “Thorsten is highly respected in terms of his knowledge of the industry and given that this appears to be a rather sudden turn of events, they needed someone who can quickly takeover the helm.”

Others questioned whether Heins brings the right set of skills to the job.

“In our view, a CEO with a strong consumer electronics and supply chain background would have been ideal,” Shaw Wu, senior technology analyst at Sterne Agee, said, arguing that whether RIM likes it or not around 70 percent of its business is consumer driven.

By the end of a mid-2011 restructuring, Heins was one of two chief operating officers at RIM, responsible for sales and for both hardware and software product engineering.

RIM marked Heins’s ascent to the top role with a seven-minute YouTube video in which the 6-foot, 6-inch CEO gave his vision for success with a noticeable German accent.

“He is not very well known outside of the company. He has been working in both Balsillie’s and Lazaridis’ shadow,” said Alexandre Peterc, analyst at Exane BNP Paribas.

“He does strike me as someone who knows the industry very well given his background at Siemens. On the plus side he is a veteran of the industry and he knows his stuff, but that said, his background is very much tech and process orientated as opposed to strategic vision orientated.”

RIM has been at pains to underline the orderly nature of the handover.

However, another analyst who requested anonymity because of his relationship with the group, said it was astounding that the COO at a company of this size should have been so invisible to the market and investor community.

He said he had heard previously from executives within RIM that Heins was very highly regarded and that he was very much on top of his brief. “His name came up repeatedly, with regards to people at RIM who really rate him.”

Nevertheless, the move was reminiscent of Hewlett-Packard’s (HPQ.N: Quote, Profile, Research) rush to find a replacement after it ousted CEO Mark Hurd. It decided on former SAP AG (SAPG.DE: Quote, Profile, Research) CEO Leo Apotheker but reversed the much-criticized step four months ago by hiring former eBay Inc (EBAY.O: Quote, Profile, Research) CEO Meg Whitman to replace Apotheker.

As takeover talk swirled and the financial world pondered whether Heins had been appointed to lead a turnaround or prepare RIM for sale, he clearly now is going to have to communicate quickly, get to know investors and raise his public profile.

That will likely leave Heins little time to follow the games of his favorite basketball team the Miami Heat or ride his motorcycle, which true to his German roots is a BMW model.

(Reporting by Maria Sheahan; Additional reporting by Marilyn Gerlach, Sinead Carew, Kate Holton, Georgina Prodhan and Paul Sandle)

Tall, soft-spoken and bespectacled, the Munich-born Heins, 54, spent most of his working life at German engineering giant Siemens, where he oversaw a mobile telephone business which faced fierce pricing pressure and quality issues.

An avid fan of NBA basketball team the Miami Heat after having lived in Florida for four years, Heins rides a BMW motorbike when he is not road cycling or embarking on long-distance charity rides.

“We will take this to new heights,” said Heins after taking over at Research in Motion from co-CEOs Mike Lazaridis and Jim Balsillie, who finally bowed to investor pressure and resigned. “Innovation is endless, we will have a lot of fun.”

Heins spent more than 20 years at Siemens, having joined straight from university in 1984 where he met his wife Petra, a mathematician and physicist. The couple have a 21-year-old son and a 23-year-old daughter.

Heins’ German roots were evident when he was asked about his choice of motorcycle. “Of course it’s a BMW, I’m German.”

By the mid-2000s, he had worked his way up to the helm of Siemens’s mobile phone business, so he was no stranger to mobiles when he joined RIM.

The business was sold to Taiwan’s BenQ in 2005, after Heins was promoted to the management board of the new Communications business, which was dismantled a year later.

“Unfortunately, it was too late to turn mobile devices because this division was already in a difficult situation, and therefore missed its opportunity to accelerate and improve itself,” said Thomas Ganswindt, who was Heins’s boss on the Communications board.

Heins was a “very strong” leader and someone “able to recognize what is needed by an ailing business,” he said.

In his career at Siemens, Heins worked in R&D, customer service, sales and product management, ending as chief technology officer. He joined RIM in December 2007.

BATTLING APPLE

By the end of a mid-2011 restructuring, Heins was one of two chief operating officers, responsible for sales and for both hardware and software product engineering. “He played key roles in the creation of RIM’s product portfolio,” the company said.

Activist investors have clamored in recent months for a new, “transformational” leader to compete with Apple’s iPhone and iPad and the slew of large-screen and powerful devices from Samsung and others using Google’s Android operating system.

RIM marked Heins’s ascent to the top role with a seven-minute YouTube video in which the 6 foot 6 inches CEO gave his vision for success with a noticeable German accent.

“He is not very well known outside of the company. He has been working in both Balsillie’s and Lazaridis’ shadow,” said Alexandre Peterc, analyst at Exane BNP Paribas.

“He does strike me as someone who knows the industry very well given his background at Siemens. On the plus side he is a veteran of the industry and he knows his stuff, but that said, his background is very much tech and process orientated as opposed to strategic vision orientated.

“You don’t say ‘this is the next Steve Jobs’ because a Steve Jobs is hard to come by,” Peterc said.

“In our view, a CEO with a strong consumer electronics and supply chain background would have been ideal,” Shaw Wu, Senior Technology Analyst at Sterne Agee, said.

Most who knew him paid tribute to his leadership skills.

“It is not a job that many people would have taken,” said Gartner analyst Carolina Milanesi.

“Thorsten is highly respected in terms of his knowledge of the industry and given that this appears to be a rather sudden turn of events, they needed someone who can quickly takeover the helm,” said CCS Insight’s Ben Wood.

RIM has been at pains to underline the orderly nature of the handover.

However, one analyst, who asked not to be named because of his relationship with the group, said it was astounding that the COO at a company of this size should have been so invisible to the market and investor community.

He said he had heard previously from executives within RIM that Heins was very highly regarded and that he was very much on top of his brief. “His name came up repeatedly, with regards to people at RIM who really rate him.”

As takeover talk swirled and the financial world pondered whether Heins had been appointed to lead a turnaround or prepare RIM for sale, he clearly now is going to have to communicate quickly, get to know investors and raise his public profile.

(Reporting by Maria Sheahan; Additional reporting by Marilyn Gerlach, Nicola Leske, Kate Holton and Paul Sandle)

This story update corrects the spelling of analyst to Shaw in the 18th paragraph

Investors have worried that they may have overestimated the resilience of corporate tech spending in a deteriorating global economy, especially after SAP’s big rival Oracle Corp reported weak quarterly results last month.

But there have been increasing signs that the outlook may not be as dim as some feared. IBM Corp, the world’s largest technology services company, brimmed with confidence for 2012 as it posted strong results last week.

“We have significant momentum going into 2012,” SAP said on Wednesday as it published its full financial results for 2011.

The German company expects operating profit will rise to 5.05-5.25 billion euros ($6.6-$6.8 billion) at constant currencies from a 40-year record level of 4.71 billion in 2011.

SAP shares were down 0.2 percent at 44.32 euros by 1223 GMT, while the German blue-chip index was 0.7 percent lower.

SAP had already reported a better-than-expected rise in fourth-quarter sales and profit on January 13.

It attributed the strong performance to demand for its biggest software products and growing demand for its HANA offering, which allows companies to analyze business data quickly, and said it had won market share overall.

“In the current environment, where growth is tough to come by, this is clearly an encouraging message,” Citigroup analyst Charles Brennan said.

CHASING THE CLOUD

SAP said it expects its 2012 revenue from software and software-related services to rise by 10-12 percent in the full year from 11.35 billion euros in 2011.

As much as 2 percentage points of that increase will be contributed by SuccessFactors, which SAP last month agreed to buy for $3.4 billion to keep up with rivals in the race for cloud-computing business.

The U.S. acquisition will dampen earnings in 2012, reducing operating margin growth to about 0.10 percentage points, compared with 1.1 percentage points improvement recorded in 2011, co-Chief Executive Bill McDermott said.

Even excluding the impact of the acquisition, margin growth will slow to 0.7 percentage points.

“We think that SAP will continue to outperform into 2012,” JP Morgan analysts said, citing fourth-quarter strength across regions and business divisions, resilient pricing and growing market share amid challenging conditions.

SAP, based in Walldorf near Heidelberg, built its business on large, integrated software systems sold to many of the world’s biggest companies, such as Apple, GE, McDonald’s and Pepsi.

Now it is also betting on its mobile and so-called in-memory databank technology, designed to make analytical software more powerful by accessing data stored locally on a chip instead of on a server, allowing it to cater to a wider variety of clients.

And it sees revenue from the cloud business at 2 billion euros by 2015.

“We are well positioned to exceed our 20 billion euros revenue target and reach a 35 percent operating margin in 2015,” Chief Financial Officer Werner Brandt said.

SAP has about 183,000 customers and bills itself as the world’s leading provider of software for managing supply chains and customer relations.

SAP, whose stock has gained about 10 percent over the past year, trades at about 14.5 times 12-month forward earnings, at a premium to Oracle’s multiple of 11.4 and IBM at 12.7, according to ThomsonReuters StarMine data.

($1=0.7704 euros)

(Reporting by Maria Sheahan; Editing by Dan Lalor and Mike Nesbit)

Tall, soft-spoken and bespectacled, the Munich-born Heins,
54, spent most of his working life at German engineering giant
Siemens, where he oversaw a mobile telephone business which
faced fierce pricing pressure and quality issues.

An avid fan of NBA basketball team the Miami Heat after
having lived in Florida for four years, Heins rides a BMW
motorbike when he is not road cycling or embarking on
long-distance charity rides.

“We will take this to new heights,” said Heins after taking
over at Research in Motion from co-CEOs Mike Lazaridis
and Jim Balsillie, who finally bowed to investor pressure and
resigned. “Innovation is endless, we will have a lot of fun.”

Heins spent more than 20 years at Siemens, having joined
straight from university in 1984 where he met his wife Petra, a
mathematician and physicist. The couple have a 21-year-old son
and a 23-year-old daughter.

Heins’ German roots were evident when he was asked about his
choice of motorcycle. “Of course it’s a BMW, I’m German.”

By the mid-2000s, he had worked his way up to the helm of
Siemens’s mobile phone business, so he was no stranger to
mobiles when he joined RIM.

The business was sold to Taiwan’s BenQ in 2005, and Heins
was promoted to the management board of the new Communications
business, which was dismantled a year later.

“Unfortunately, it was too late to turn mobile devices
because this division was already in a difficult situation, and
therefore missed its opportunity to accelerate and improve
itself,” said Thomas Ganswindt, who was Heins’s boss on the
Communications board.

Heins was a “very strong” leader and someone “able to
recognise what is needed by an ailing business”, he said.

In his career at Siemens, Heins worked in R&D, customer
service, sales and product management, ending as chief
technology officer. He joined RIM in December 2007.

BATTLING APPLE

By the end of a mid-2011 restructuring, Heins was one of two
chief operating officers, responsible for sales and for both
hardware and software product engineering. “He played key roles
in the creation of RIM’s product portfolio,” the company said.

Activist investors have clamoured in recent months for a
new, “transformational” leader to compete with Apple’s iPhone
and iPad and the slew of large-screen and powerful devices from
Samsung and others using Google’s Android operating system.

RIM marked Heins’s ascent to the top role with a
seven-minute YouTube video in which the 6 foot 6 inches CEO gave
his vision for success with a noticeable German accent.

“He is not very well known outside of the company. He has
been working in both Balsillie’s and Lazaridis’ shadow,” said
Alexandre Peterc, analyst at Exane BNP Paribas.

“He does strike me as someone who knows the industry very
well given his background at Siemens. On the plus side he is a
veteran of the industry and he knows his stuff, but that said,
his background is very much tech and process orientated as
opposed to strategic vision orientated.

“You don’t say ‘this is the next Steve Jobs’ because a Steve
Jobs is hard to come by,” Peterc said.

“In our view, a CEO with a strong consumer electronics and
supply chain background would have been ideal,” Saw Wu, Senior
Technology Analyst at Sterne Agee, said.

Most who knew him paid tribute to his leadership skills.

“It is not a job that many people would have taken,” said
Gartner analyst Carolina Milanesi.

“Thorsten is highly respected in terms of his knowledge of
the industry and given that this appears to be a rather sudden
turn of events, they needed someone who can quickly takeover the
helm,” said CCS Insight’s Ben Wood.

RIM has been at pains to underline the orderly nature of the
handover.

However, one analyst, who asked not to be named because of
his relationship with the group, said it was astounding that the
COO at a company of this size should have been so invisible to
the market and investor community.

He said he had heard previously from executives within RIM
that Heins was very highly regarded and that he was very much on
top of his brief. “His name came up repeatedly, with regards to
people at RIM who really rate him.”

As takeover talk swirled and the financial world pondered
whether Heins had been appointed to lead a turnaround or prepare
RIM for sale, he clearly now is going to have to communicate
quickly, get to know investors and raise his public profile.

Operating profits were up 10 percent at 1.78 billion euros ($2.28 billion) in the quarter, ahead of the consensus forecast of 1.65 billion euros expected by analysts, according to Thomson Reuters StarMine.

The company attributed the strong performance to demand for its biggest software products and growing demand for its HANA offering — which allows companies to analyze business data quickly — and said it had won market share overall.

SAP’s share price was up 3.8 percent at 43.02 euros by 1450 GMT, when the German market’s DAX index .GDAXI was 0.7 percent lower.

“We believed that SAP would show an in-line quarter and are therefore positively surprised by the outperformance on the license side and in particular with the realtime solution HANA,” DZ Bank analyst Oliver Finger said.

Expectations had also been dimmed by poor quarterly results from SAP’s big rival Oracle Corp (ORCL.O: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) last month, sending shock waves across the technology sector as investors feared they may have overestimated the resilience of corporate tech spending in a deteriorating global economy.

SAP’s sales of software and related services, which are key to future lucrative maintenance revenue streams, rose 12 percent from a year ago to 3.72 billion euros in the fourth quarter.

The company is due to publish full results on January 25 when it will also provide an outlook for the full year 2012.

Fourth-quarter operating profit excludes some one-off items such as acquisition-related charges of 115 million euros.

SAP last month agreed to buy SuccessFactors (SFSF.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) for $3.4 billion to keep up keep up with rivals in the frenzied race for cloud-computing business.

SAP had raised its sales outlook on the deal, saying its revenue could easily reach 21 billion euros by 2015, about a billion euros more than expected.

Its 2012 earnings will be diluted by the purchase, but there will be a positive impact from 2013 on.

The German company, based in Walldorf near Heidelberg, built its business on large, integrated software systems sold to many of the world’s biggest companies, such as Apple (AAPL.O: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz), GE (GE.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz), McDonald’s (MCD.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) and Pepsi (PEP.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz).

SAP currently has some 176,000 customers and bills itself as the world’s leading provider of software for managing supply chains and customer relations.

($1=0.7814 euros)

(Reporting by Maria Sheahan and Harro ten Wolde; Editing by Mike Nesbit and Greg Mahlich)