Crash into the bottomless
The extent of the fall in the Wirecard price shocked many investors. Until recently, a number of German funds had relied on the payment processor. Who is hard hit and who even benefited from the crash? And can the Dax company still be saved?

Wirecard logo at the company headquarters in Aschheim near Munich imago images / Sven Simon

The German flagship index Dax has not seen a price drop of 80 percent within two days for a long time. Wirecard owners fled from the stock in panic after EY's auditors refused to testify to the group because there was no evidence of 1.9 billion euros remaining. Shortly before the annual press conference on Thursday, the price was still at 100 euros. The unprecedented crash began with the cancellation: First, the stock was broken down to 40 euros by Thursday evening, and on Friday morning it sank further down to 20 euros. Markus Braun himself ended the free fall on Friday afternoon by declaring his resignation. The price then turned upwards - but only made up a few euros.

So there are still buyers. On the one hand, there are short sellers who now have to stock up on stocks or want to stock up at a low price. But there are also undaunted ones who still believe in Wirecard. Do those hope the allegations turn out to be false? Or that at least what can be saved is saved? Are they extremely nerve-wracked bargain hunters who hope that Wirecard will become a takeover candidate and be bought up by one of the international competitors? That could raise the course a bit again. However, those should then be able to cope with another course decline. Since yesterday, market observers and analysts have been warning Wirecards of insolvency if banks make loans due to the lack of an annual report. That would hardly bring up the outstanding two billion. Getting started is a daring maneuver.

Withdrawal of major investors
The previous major investors have already withdrawn in the past few weeks. According to the Wirecard company website, as of June 18, all of their holdings really fell below the magical reporting threshold of three percent. The world's largest wealth management company, Blackrock, still holds 2.89 percent - which is likely due to the high volume in the company's own index funds. The same applies to DWS, fund subsidiary of Deutsche Bank with the ETF brand Xtrackers, which holds a similarly high proportion. Union Investment, however, voluntarily stayed with 2.12 percent. The major American bank Morgan Stanley ranked fourth among external investors with 1.07 percent. Less than one percent of the shares, i.e. more homeopathic holdings, are also in the hands of Goldman Sachs, Bank of America, Société Générale and Citigroup.

Only one person has kept his share package and even increased something at the end of April: Markus Braun. The previous board holds 7.07 percent of the shares.

In the meantime, Wirecard shares are somehow regarded as uck. On Thursday evening, the fund company DWS completely distanced itself with the following statement: "We currently no longer have any material positions in actively managed funds." In addition, "we analyze the factual situation and examine the initiation of legal steps".

Large investors and private investors are now collecting legal ammunition to fire against Wirecard. Shareholder advocates and investor lawyers such as the well-known law firm Tilp launched the first investor lawsuits in May.

Better late than never. Ultimately, fund houses and banks have positioned themselves optimistically for the share until the very end. Although the allegations against Wirecard have been in the room for over a year. It was not very foresighted and, above all, it limited the risk. Union Investment, for example, passed the reporting threshold in January. Deutsche Bank only increased significantly in autumn 2019. They all speculated on the further rise of the company, which had climbed into the leading German index Dax in autumn 2018 with fabulous growth figures.