BERLIN (Reuters) – Commerzbank gained 4.26% on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange on Monday morning as it returned to the German Dax index from which the bank was ousted in 2018.
The reintegration of Germany’s second-largest bank into the country’s flagship stock market index comes two years after a major restructuring of the group which led to thousands of job cuts and the closure of dozens of branches, making it possible to reconnect with the profitability.
“We have come to stay,” said Commerzbank chairman Manfred Knof before ringing the bell at the Frankfurt Stock Exchange. “The return of Commerzbank is a good signal for the German banking market”.
In 2018, Commerzbank – still partly government-owned after a bailout more than a decade ago – was spun out of the Dax in favor of fintech Wirecard, which has since collapsed after extensive accounting fraud.
In response to this scandal, Deutsche Börse overhauled the stock market index to include 40 companies, instead of 30, and tightened the admission criteria.
Commerzbank thus replaces the industrial gas group Linde, which had announced that it wanted to leave the Dax.
(Marta Orosz, written by Rachel More, Laetitia Volga, edited by Matthieu Protard)
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