According to a study, the German flagship index Dax is now held, almost a quarter, by investors from the United States and Canada.
The Consulting Company EY reported on Monday, on the basis of its annual survey, that 23.9 % of the shares of the 40 companies making up the Dax belong to North American investors. Their share has not stopped increasing since 2010: at the time, they had only 17.1 % of the Dax, since the data was available. German investors have only about a third of the Dax shares, their share having decreased to 31.1 % in the past 15 years. For 14.3 % of investors, the origin remains uncertain.
In total, like last year, 52.6 % of the Dax is undoubtedly in the hands of foreign investors. For Henrik Ahlers, CEO of EY, this “proves the constant attraction of large German companies and the confidence they enjoy worldwide”. According to him, Germany is only one market among others for these companies, which makes them less vulnerable to local difficulties than other groups.
The distribution between national and foreign investors, however, varies strongly from one Dax company to another: the Biotechnology group Qiaigen displays the highest proportion of foreign shareholders (93 %), followed by the Brenntag chemical distributor (88 %) and the MTU aeronautical equipment supplier (83 %). In 24 of the 40 companies in the Dax, the majority of shares are held by foreign investors. Only six companies are still mainly in the hands of German investors, and, in five cases (Porsche AG, Siemens Healthineers, Beiersdorf, Hannover Rück and BMW), this is explained by the presence of one or two large German shareholders. The only exception is the Basf chemical group, which has no dominant German shareholder, but where foreign shareholders remain in the minority.
The study also indicates that at least half of the 54 billion euros that Dax companies will pay their shareholders this year in the form of dividends will leave abroad. Only 40 % – or 21.7 billion euros – will remain in the country, three points less than last year. According to Ahlers, German investors are themselves responsible for this situation: “Unfortunately, shareholder culture remains relatively poorly developed in Germany. »»
(Report by Alexander Hübner, edited by Philipp Krach. For any questions, please contact our editorial staff in [email protected] (Politics and Economy) or [email protected] (companies and markets).).
