SMAX offers small and medium-sized companies an attractive stock-exchange platform. The 29 new issuers, including four foreign companies, have raised a total of about 1.4 billion euros in equity on the exchange and thus financed further investments. The prices of the SMAX company shares have risen an average of some 25 percent, a few of them by as much as several 100 percent.
According to Deutsche Börse, the SMAX stocks are attractive for investors because of the upside potential and a medium-range risk-reward profile. The equity story of the companies is decisive - a clear vision and a strategy that are bolstered by corresponding figures and have to be communicated to the capital market. This is where SMAX sets the standards that make it a quality segment: the companies agree to comply with higher standards of disclosure and to carry out active investor relations work, through quarterly reports, for example, and starting in the year 2002, accounting and reporting according to international standards (either IAS or US-GAAP). Designated Sponsors provide for additional liquidity in the Xetra electronic trading system.
Companies in the SMAX segment that have grown from small-caps to mid-caps are another example of how effective a listing in SMAX can be. Five SMAX companies-Kamps, Software AG, Beate Uhse, VCL Film und Medien as well as Baader Wertpapierhandelsbank-have moved up into the mid-cap index, MDAX, in the meantime.
