General

The Open Market is a market which is regulated by the stock exchange and no organized market in the meaning of the German Securities Trading Act, WpHG (Sect. 2 Paragraph 5 WpHG). In contrast to the Regulated Market organized under public law, the Open Market is a market under private law. The provisions for the inclusion of shares in the Open Market as well as the follow-up obligations are governed by the General Terms and Conditions of Deutsche Börse AG for the Regulated Unofficial Market (Freiverkehr) on Frankfurter Wertpapierbörse (AGB DBAG). An admission to the Open Market is possible for shares which are neither admitted for, nor included into trading on the Regulated Market.

Issuers in Open Market comply with lesser formal requirements compared to the Regulated Market. Thus, the Open Market offers an attractive alternative especially for small and medium-sized companies.

Segments

Companies who strive for a new issue market listing and who are ready to comply with a certain transparency degree, may be admitted to Scale. Scale is the Open Market segment bearing certain transparency requirements.

The Prime Standard is a partial segment of the Regulated Market bearing additional admission follow-up obligations. The access requirements and particular follow-up obligations are set forth in the Börsenordnung für die Frankfurter Wertpapierbörse [Exchange Rules for FWB]. Thee Management Board of Frankfurter Wertpapierbörse will decide upon application on the admission to the Prime Standard. The application may be submitted jointly with the application for admission to the Regulated Market (General Standard). Unless the Management Board has knowledge of circumstances indicating that the company will not or not orderly perform the additional follow-up obligations, the stock or certificates representing stock have to be admitted to the Prime Standard. As a rule, such circumstances generally will be presumed if the company, for example, submitted an application for institution of insolvency proceedings.

The follow-up obligations applying to the Prime Standard exceed the follow-up obligations of the General Standard and have to be performed in addition to these. Thus, the Prime Standard at Frankfurter Wertpapierbörse and even all throughout Europe is the segment bearing the highest requirements.
The additional admission follow-up obligations of the Prime Standard are not only characterised by their higher degree of transparency requirements, but, above all, by the demand to comply with these requirements also in the English language as a rule. So the Prime Standard is the right choice for issuers who specifically wish to present their company to international investors.

You can find detailed information on the course of the admission procedure under the station “Admission Procedure“. For further information about the particular follow-up obligations of the Prime Standard, please see the corresponding stations of the “Being Public-Line”.

Issuers in General Standard meet the high transparency requirements of the Regulated Market without being specifically focused on international investment. Thus the General Standard is primarily meant for medium- sized and large companies who focus on mainly domestic investors.

In General Standard the statutory requirements for the EC-Regulated Market apply. The particular access requirements as well as the follow-up obligations are set forth in the Börsengesetz [German Stock Exchange Act], the Börsenzulassungs-Verordnung [German Stock Exchange Admission Regulation] as well as in the Börsenordnung für die Frankfurter Wertpapierbörse [Exchange Rules for the FWB]. The Management Board of Frankfurter Wertpapierbörse will decide upon application on the admission to the Regulated Market (General Standard).
You will find detailed information about the course of admission proceedings under the station “Admission Proceedure“. For more detailed information on the individual follow-up obligations of the General Standard please visit the corresponding stations of the “Being Public-Line”.

Moreover, you may also find helpful explanations in the issuers guidelines of the Bundesanstalt für Finanzdienstleistungsaufsicht (BaFin) [German Federal Agency for Financial Market Supervision].