Deutsche Börse Announces SDAX® Composition

Deutsche Börse has announced the composition of the SDAX. The SDAX will be launched on June 21 and comprises the top 100 German companies in the SMAX quality segment. The segment now has a total of 104 companies with a market capitalization of just under 20 billion EURO. The SDAX rounds out the DAX family of Deutsche Börse indices: in addition to the 30 blue-chip stocks in the DAX and the 70 companies in the MDAX (mid-cap DAX), the SDAX completes the index family with 100 small and medium-sized companies. Analogous to the other Deutsche Börse indices, the selection criteria for companies to be included in the SDAX are market capitalization and share turnover. A company can be included in the SDAX if, in line with the so-called 110/110 Rule, it ranks among the 110 top SMAX companies in terms of market capitalization and share turnover. No one company may have more than a 10 percent weighting in the SDAX. The index composition is reviewed on a quarterly basis. If necessary, companies in the index are replaced on the index chaining dates in March, June, September and December. The weightings are also adjusted quarterly. The index is calculated as a price index and as a performance index. The base date for the index is year-end 1987 with a value of 1,000. Deutsche Börse has also established the procedure to be followed for Hoechst AG in the DAX index of 30 German blue chips. After the index chaining date on September 17, Hoechst AG will be taken out of the DAX if the annual general meetings of the two companies Hoechst and Rhône Poulenc have approved the planned merger by that time. The index has to be revised because, with the merger of Hoechst and Rhône Poulenc, the prerequisites for a company to remain in the DAX are no longer given. The new company, Aventis, is not a domestic company. The company that will replace Hoechst in the DAX will be determined on July 20. In this connection Deutsche Börse pointed out once again that, as of June 21, all of the share indices will be calculated exclusively from Xetra prices.