The Share
Symrise Shares: An Eventful First Year on the Stock Exchange
The
performance of the stock markets in 2007 was marked by the difficult
situation on the US mortgage market as well as further rising energy
and raw material prices. After an overall good performance of the stock
markets in the first half of 2007, mid-year brought a correction of
share prices, which fluctuated more strongly.
The German MDAX index, which has included the Symrise stock since March 19, 2007, showed 9,405 points at the beginning of 2007. In the following twelve months, it fluctuated strongly and ended 2007 with an increase of approximately 5% at 9,865 points.
Despite
some fluctuation, the Symrise stock was initially able to perform
positively. The positive opinions of analysts and the good interim year
performance of our Company were well accepted by the market and pushed
the stock. On July 18 and 19, 2007, the stock reached € 22.20, its
highest XETRA closing price in fiscal year 2007. From the end of July
2007, however, the stock markets underwent a major consolidation phase.
The difficult situation in the US mortgage market and its impact on
financial institutions and the global economy led to strong volatility
worldwide and some significant drops in share prices. Our stock was
unable to avoid this trend. On August 16, 2007, it closed at € 17.90,
its lowest share price of the year. In the following weeks and months,
however, it was able to recover again. On December 28, 2007, it closed
at € 19.28 and therefore ended 2007 just below its level at the
beginning of the year of € 19.50.
Compared
to our stock market debut on December 11, 2006, with an initial price
of € 17.25, our share price has performed satisfactorily up to the end
of 2007. Our shares posted an increase for this period of approximately
12%. The stock thus performed somewhat better than the MDAX, which was
able to increase by approximately 10% in the same period.
At the beginning of 2008, the global downswing on the stock markets continued. The Symrise stock had to face additional losses and came down to € 18.00 at the editorial deadline for this report (February 27, 2008).
In the MDAX, the
Symrise stock has a market capitalization of € 2.1 billion – measured
on the basis of the free float of 94.1% – and is therefore ranked 14th
place at the end of 2007. With this, the stock has a weighting of 2.3%
within the index.