Thyssenkrupp CEO

According to the Financial Times, Thyssenkrupp has attracted at least four bids for its crown jewel, including from Finnish lift maker Kone

The remarks came as steel workers staged protests at the unit's headquarters in Duisburg in the heart of the Ruhr area, Germany's industrial heartland, asking for job security and future investments

Thyssenkrupp investors have long criticised the group's negative cash flow, which was -1.14 billion euros last year

Thyssenkrupp previously said it would cut 6,000 of the group's 162,000 jobs

The company said in a statement that its supervisory board executive and personnel committees had recommended 'to start negotiations to end the board mandate of Guido Kerkhoff shortly'

In the job since 2011, Hiesinger, 58, was bowing to growing investor pressure for a more radical restructuring of the group