The asset management division of Germany’s largest bank began trading on the country’s stock exchange Friday.
Shares of Deutsche Bank‘s DWS edged higher in their stock market debut on the Frankfurt stock exchange, with the listing likely to galvanize the mood among other pending German flotations.
The opening share price of 32.55 euros apiece was marginally higher than the issue price of 32.50 euros set by the bank on Thursday evening. The price per share for DWS came in slightly below the mid-point of its initial target range, though it is still expected to generate proceeds of about 1.4 billion euros for the bank.
“I think it is a big day for the German financial industry and especially for Frankfurt because we are the first asset manager being listed in Germany, we are the largest in Europe and we have got great ambition,” Nicolas Moreau, CEO of DWS, told CNBC on Friday.
Deutsche Bank is selling 22.5 percent of the company, which has assets worth more than 700 billion euros under management.
In making its stock market debut on Friday, DWS is then reportedly expected to boast a market capitalization of around 6.5 billion euros. Deutsche Bank is thought to be holding onto approximately 80 percent of its asset management division, with Japan’s Nippon Life poised to acquire 5 percent of the stake and France’s Tikehau Capital set to purchase almost 4 percent of the company.
Deutsche Bank is in the midst of an ongoing restructuring program and the listing of DWS marks a key milestone for CEO John Cryan. However, a string of bad news has seen the embattled lender’s share price fall by almost 25 percent since last January.
Moreau said that while he recognized many people were “impatient” to see an uptick in Deutsche Bank’s performance, he argued that the management board was continuing to try and “make this great bank great again.”
“Things are progressing well… this listing is the proof of it. We announced it one year ago and did it in one year. My colleagues on the retail side are also progressing quite well, so there is a lot of progress,” he added.
The IPO of DWS marks one of Germany’s biggest listings in recent years and follows hot on the heels of Siemens Healthineers’ stock market debut last week.
Meanwhile, several large German IPOs are pending, with SpringerNature, HSE24 and Godewind all scheduled to list over the coming weeks.
