With Siemens embroiled in several major scandals -- top-level bribery, alleged mismanagement of its now-bankrupt subsidiary BenQ, and a European Union-imposed €423 million fine for price-fixing -- the company management can't have been looking forward to its annual meeting with its shareholders on Thursday in Munich.

Least of all supervisory board chair Heinrich von Pierer, who managed Siemens at the time when the alleged bribery took place. He said that his failure to combat corruption within the company had caused him great grief.

Pierer's successor Kleinfeld, on the other hand, came up with some good news. Just before the meeting, the company manager reported a 51 percent rise to €1.6 billion in Siemens' first-quarter operating profits. He also announced that the company plans an initial public offering (IPO) of part of its subsidiary VDO, a 53,000-employee international car parts manufacturer with an annual revenue of €10 million. On top of that, Siemens is in the process of buying the US software company UGS for $3.5 billion.

The German stock market reacted with enthusiasm to Kleinfeld's new Siemens strategy. As the DAX closed on Thursday night, the company's share price had risen by 5.95 percent to €82.60, making Siemens the leading stock of the day.

The business daily Handelsblatt writes: "Capital has a short-term memory ... International investors in particular are knocking on Klaus Kleinfeld's door because they like his 'portfolio policies.' In any case, Siemens deserves credit for being able to act like this at such a critical general meeting. For the management, it must be liberating to show that it is still capable of doing things.

"The partial sale of one of its subsidiaries and the acquisition of another one in the USA are in line with the brave changes that Klaus Kleinfeld started when he took office in 2005. Of course, some things have failed and the worst disaster -- at least on a communicative level -- was when BenQ went bankrupt. Nonetheless, there is a logic behind the restructuring: Siemens is focussing more and more on its strengths and wants to build on them.

"However this doesn't mean that Siemens is out of the woods yet. Should it turn out that the current management does know something (about the bribery scandal), despite saying the opposite, it could spell disaster. But Klaus Kleinfeld gave the impression that the crisis didn't have much to do with him and the stock market at least seems to believe him."

The center-right Die Welt, on the other hand, thinks that Siemens has done severe damage to its image as a "righteous role model". It writes: "It seems that the exact opposite was the case for many years. Siemens has got the worst bribery scandal in German corporate history to its name, an infamous sale of its bankrupt mobile phone subsidiary, illegal price-fixing and on top of that exaggerated rises in executive pay.

"All this has fundamentally shaken Germany's former model company. It's this difference between what it claims and what it really is, that make Pierer's and Kleinfeld's excuses sound weak. Both have long lost their credibility in the eyes of clients and employees. It's becoming increasingly clear that its shady practices will cost the company many millions of euros in the future, not to mention worldwide damage to its own image and that of Germany's economy.

"Siemens needs to radically reinvent itself if it wants to prevent any more disasters. It needs a fundamental change in mentality and that includes changes to its staff. Most of the mistakes were made when Pierer was CEO. Now he can show how much Siemens really means to him and step down. His protegé Kleinfeld doesn't have much time left to prove that he's a reformer and not part of the old Siemens system."

The left-leaning Süddeutsche Zeitung writes: "Kleinfeld's message is that nobody can stop him, but that's dangerous. He may be asking too much of the company. Siemens' 475,000 employees are used to a slow pace and not only are they intimidated by him now, they will probably grow even more intimidated in the future. If Kleinfeld wants to stay on as CEO, he has to be able to take those people along with him. His aggressive strategy could cost him his job eventually.

"Kleinfeld is forcing through a change which he sees as strength but which others could consider weakness. The Siemens boss is paying a lot of attention to what the financial markets demand. He's willing to sacrifice anything that could mean loss in profits and so he restructures his company mercilessly. Short-term success is emphasized over long-term strategy. Siemens and Kleinfeld have turned themselves into hounded creatures of financial investors who'll continue to demand more radical steps."