By Friedrich Geiger 

BERLIN-- E.ON on Monday announced the name and leader of the new company which will be formed when the energy generator splits itself in two.

The new company, to be called Uniper, will be headed by the group's current chief financial officer, Klaus Schäfer, Germany's largest utility said.

E.ON will split into two companies, with Uniper focusing on conventional- power generation and E.ON concentrating on renewable energy and distribution networks. Uniper will begin operations Jan. 1. Johannes Teyssen will remain chief executive of E.ON and Michael Sen, currently CFO of Siemens AG's health-care business, will become finance chief June 1.

The group's split, announced in November, is a response to Germany's shift toward renewable energy. The country decided to exit nuclear-power generation following the disaster at a plant in Fukushima, Japan, and seeks to generate less power from coal in an effort to reduce carbon emissions.

E.ON will ask shareholders approve spinning off a majority stake in Uniper to the shareholders at the general meeting in June 2016.

E.ON will move its headquarters to Essen while Uniper will take over the offices in the group's hometown of Düsseldorf.

"The main priority of everyone involved was for as few employees as possible to face longer commutes," Mr. Teyssen said about the selection of the two cities. The decision follows a poll among employees. The future E.ON will have about 40,000 staff and the new unit 20,000, the company said in November.

Both companies will have four management board functions. Uniper's CFO will be Christopher Delbrück, now head of the group's global commodities unit. Eckhardt Rümmler, currently chief of the conventional and renewable power business, will become chief operating officer of the new company. A chief commercial officer will be added to the team in the coming months.

E.ON's management board will retain Leonhard Birnbaum and Bernhard Reutersberg as leaders of the operating business. Jørgen Kildahl and Mike Winkel will leave management.

The legal groundwork for the new setup will be laid in the second half of the year.

The group's decision to part with its legacy business has sparked allegations that E.ON wants to escape the long-term costs of disposing of nuclear waste and demolishing nuclear plants. Some fear German taxpayers will have to shoulder those costs. E.ON has denied the allegations and said the new unit will have enough assets to cover the expenses.

An earlier version of this story misspelled the name of Klaus Schäfer.

Write to Friedrich Geiger at friedrich.geiger@wsj.com

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