As expected
Commerzbank back in the DAX
02/17/2023, 10:18 p.m
After almost four and a half years, Commerzbank is returning to the DAX. The bank, once a founding member of the leading German index, will replace the German-American industrial gases group Linde on February 27.
Four and a half years after being dropped from the DAX, Commerzbank is returning to the leading index of the Frankfurt Stock Exchange. This was announced by Deutsche Börse on Friday evening. Commerzbank was seen as the most promising successor – before the armaments group Rheinmetall. For Commerzbank AG, Nordex SE is said to be moving up in the MDAX in the message the German stock exchange. The previous heavyweight Linde will leave the DAX on February 27th.
Linde, previously the heaviest Dax stock, is withdrawing from the Frankfurt Stock Exchange and will only be listed in New York in the future. The return of Commerzbank had become apparent in view of the price development. In September 2018 it had to give way to the payment processor Wirecard, which went bankrupt in 2020.
The descent from the DAX in 2018 marks one of several low points in Commerzbank’s development in recent years. The bank, after all a founding member of the DAX, set out – like other German financial institutions at the time – to become a global player at the beginning of the millennium. But the peak, the takeover of competitor Dresdner Bank in 2008, was followed by the crash within just a few weeks. The global banking crisis revealed gaps in the billions in the balance sheet, Commerzbank had to be rescued by the German state, which is still the largest shareholder today.
The rise and fall of a bank
The fact that Germany’s second largest private bank is now returning to the DAX shows that Commerzbank has recovered from this existential crisis. But it is by no means a triumphant comeback. Commerzbank has met the requirement for inclusion in the DAX, namely having closed the last two financial years with a profit. In 2020 it was still deep in the red. A modest profit followed in 2021. The bank brought forward the presentation of preliminary figures for 2022 with a pre-tax profit of a good two billion euros to the end of January this year. So she was able to qualify for the upcoming decision at the last moment – as the successor to Linde AG, which in future will only be listed on the New York Stock Exchange.
In place of Commerzbank, the wind turbine manufacturer Nordex has moved into the MDax small-cap index, which in turn has been replaced by the financial investor Deutsche Beteiligungs-AG (DBAG) in the SDax. Linde will also drop out of the European index Euro STOXX 50 the Monday after next. There, too, the company will be replaced by a bank – the Italian HypoVereinsbank parent company UniCredit.