FRANKFURT (Reuters) - Siemens (DE:SIEGn) has no plans to float its healthcare business next year following the legal separation of the unit in countries including Germany, Chief Executive Joe Kaeser told the weekly publication Wirtschafts Woche.
The engineering group is preparing the separation to give the business more independence but the move has been seen as a possible precursor to a full or partial disposal.
The healthcare business in Germany is to be transferred into a separate legal unit in the third or fourth quarter of 2015.
Asked whether the healthcare business would be listed on the stock exchange in 2015, Kaeser said "no", Wirtschafts Woche reported on Saturday.
The German magazine quoted him as saying Siemens wanted to prepare the healthcare business for a paradigm shift towards molecular biology and diagnostics as well as biotechnology and give it more independence, for instance to make acquisitions.
Kaeser also affirmed that he sees Siemens returning to growth in 2016 after focussing on improving the profitability of its core industrial businesses in its current financial year through the end of September.
"I know that some analysts on the capital market see progress as being too slow," Wirtschafts Woche quoted Kaeser as saying.
"I tell them that our company is not just being set up for the next quarter or the next year but for a whole generation. The innovation cycles for our products and solutions are between three and eight years. So we can't post new records every quarter," he said.
(Reporting by Maria Sheahan; Editing by Elaine Hardcastle)