Siemens shareholders plan to challenge Osram spin-off: report

Packages with 30 watt light bulbs of lamp manufacturer Osram inside are pictured in a shop in Germering near Munich November 28, 2012.

FRANKFURT (Reuters) - A group of investors plans to challenge German industrial conglomerate Siemens' move to spin off its lighting division Osram, German paper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung reported, without saying where it obtained the information.

Nine unidentified investors on Monday plan to file a lawsuit which could lead to a delay in the planned listing of Osram, because the division cannot become registered while the lawsuit is ongoing, the paper said.

Shareholders agreed at a meeting on January 23 to spin off 80.5 percent of Osram, which has a book value of 2.3 billion euros ($3 billion). Siemens investors would receive one Osram share for each ten Siemens shares they hold.

The nine investors plan to argue that Siemens did not conduct the shareholder meeting properly because of acoustics problems, as Chief Financial Officer Joe Kaeser partly spoke in an inaudible manner, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung reported.

Siemens was not immediately available to comment.

Osram generates annual sales of about 5 billion euros and has about 39,000 employees worldwide. Its lamps are used to light up Disneyland Paris, the Hippodrom beer tent at Munich's Oktoberfest and the Arena Corinthians in Sao Paulo, which will host the opening match of the 2014 World Cup soccer tournament.

($1 = 0.7598 euros)

(Reporting by Peter Dinkloh; Editing by Mark Potter)