Six-Month Record at Deutsche Börse Clearing

Settlement of registered shares with limited transferability rose substantially during the first half of the year. Deutsche Börse Clearing changed over almost half a million registered shares (474,398) with its CASCADE-RS special settlement system for registered shares, an increase of 80 percent compared with the same period of last year and almost as many as the total settlement volume last year (487,744). According to Jürgen Blitz, chief executive officer of Deutsche Börse Clearing, the marked increase underscores the fact that issuers are issuing their securities as registered shares. Over 10 companies will probably be converting their shares into registered shares this year, and by the end of next year half of all DAX companies are expected to follow. Blitz added: "CASCADE-RS is supporting this trend. The software simplifies the settlement of registered shares and creates the basis for efficient investor relations work." During the second quarter of 1999 Deutsche Börse Clearing again reported record levels in settlement volume and custody business. Settlement volume at the end of June amounted to 4.8 trillion, increasing by more than 15 percent compared with the previous year. Global custody business nearly doubled to a volume of EUR134.7 billion (EUR69.8 billion in June 1998). Compared with the first quarter of this year, volume rose 17.5 percent. During the first six months the number of book-entry items rose one-third to 37.7 million compared with the previous year. Of this number, 33.2 million transactions were accounted for by domestic securities, 4.5 million transactions by global securities. In global securities business the number of transactions increased about 90 percent, nearly doubling. The number of domestic transactions rose by about 30 percent from January to June compared with the same period of last year. 30.3 million book-entry items with a cash clearing amount totalling EUR6.7 trillion to securities transactions with cash clearing.