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3 weeks ago | 
boersen-zeitung.de | Stefan Kroneck
Against the background of Unicredit's advances towards Commerzbank, a corporate anniversary is moving into the spotlight. In June, it will be 20 years since the takeover of HypoVereinsbank (HVB) by the Italian banking giant was sealed. In its defensive battle against Unicredit’s ambitions, Germany’s second-largest commercial bank argues that it would face the same fate as HVB should the Milan-based bank indeed take over the „Yellow Bank“ headquartered in Frankfurt.
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1 month ago | 
boersen-zeitung.de | Stefan Kroneck
The battle for control of ProSiebenSat.1 has escalated. In mid-May, the second-largest individual shareholder, the Czech financial investor PPF, announced it would make a public offer to the free float shareholders. The group, led by the heirs of billionaire Petr Kellner, is taking this step to oppose the offer from the Italian media company Media for Europe (MFE), controlled by the heirs of Silvio Berlusconi.
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1 month ago | 
boersen-zeitung.de | Stefan Kroneck
9 October 2023 went down in Schaeffler's history. On this day, the industrial and automotive supplier announced the takeover of drive specialist Vitesco, for which it receives the Corporate Finance Award from Börsen-Zeitung in the M&A category. This was a smart move, per se, by CEO Klaus Rosenfeld and Supervisory Board Chairman Georg Schaeffler. Because in the transformation to electromobility, economies of scale increase competitiveness in the automotive industry.
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2 months ago | 
boersen-zeitung.de | Stefan Kroneck
Infineon is expanding its core activities in the field of automotive applications with an acquisition in the USA. The semiconductor company from Neubiberg near Munich has announced that it is acquiring the automotive ethernet business of Marvell Technology for 2.5 billion dollars in cash. The acquisition will be financed through equity and bank loans. Infineon intends to strengthen its activities for software-controlled vehicles with this step.
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2 months ago | 
boersen-zeitung.de | Stefan Kroneck
Increasing costs in property and casualty insurance have hit the Nürnberger insurance group hard. At its annual results presentation, the company reported a loss of 77 million euros for 2024 – the largest deficit in its corporate history. Write-downs on deferred tax assets in the property and casualty segment contributed to the poor result. The net loss was in line with the profit warning issued at the end of November last year.
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2 months ago | 
boersen-zeitung.de | Stefan Kroneck
For a long time, BMW was considered an outsider among automakers in the transition to electromobility, due to its concept of „technological openness“. The Munich-based company’s strategy is based on producing battery-powered vehicles on the same assembly line as conventional combustion engine cars. When Mercedes-Benz and the Volkswagen Group failed with their opposing concepts of separate EV production lines, they pivoted to BMW's more cost-effective and flexible approach.
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2 months ago | 
boersen-zeitung.de | Stefan Kroneck
Reinsurers have reason to laugh at the moment. Despite increasing geopolitical tensions, the growing risks of climate change and, most recently, devastating losses from natural disasters, the big three – Munich Re, Swiss Re and Hannover Re – are making a fortune. However, the capital markets are increasingly asking whether the favourable situation in the sector will continue, or whether it will come to an end in the foreseeable future.
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Mar 11, 2025 | 
boersen-zeitung.de | Stefan Kroneck
The EU Commission is not only quick to learn in relation to the current geopolitical upheavals, but also in relation to the automotive industry. Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and her team are taking the right approach by granting EU car manufacturers more time to fulfil stricter CO2 emission limits for their vehicle fleets. The timeframe for the targets was already very ambitious.
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Feb 11, 2025 | 
boersen-zeitung.de | Stefan Kroneck
There is hardly any other sector of the economy in which it is more difficult for companies to make predictions or forecasts than the chip industry. This is not only due to the volatile and capital-intensive nature of the electronic microcomponent business per se, but above all to the increasing globalisation of activities. This makes the early-cycle semiconductor industry even more vulnerable to unexpected disruptions of all kinds, which economists refer to as „exogenous“ shocks.
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Feb 4, 2025 | 
boersen-zeitung.de | Stefan Kroneck
Defeatism is spreading in Germany. The reason for this is the weakness of the economy. There are fears that the oscillation between stagnation and recession in the EU's largest economy will become permanent. If even the country's elites, and this includes above all the leading politicians in Berlin and those responsible for large and medium-sized companies, doubt that tried and tested virtues will be enough to lead the economy out of the current trough, then the German economy is in a bad way.
