Magdeburg Stock Exchange
The Magdeburg Stock Exchange was a stock exchange in Magdeburg . It became particularly important for the sugar trade . At times it was one of the three major world exchanges in this segment.
history
First foundation in 1824
The impetus for founding the stock exchange came from Magdeburg's mayor August Wilhelm Francke , who approached the city's merchants in 1820 and pointed out the importance of such a market for trading in securities for the regional economy.
On March 12, 1824, the decision to found the Magdeburg Stock Exchange was passed in the guild house on the Alter Markt . The first stock exchange meeting then met on March 16. However, no further meetings took place. The stock market turned out to be uneconomical.
Second foundation in 1843
In 1843 the Magdeburg Stock Exchange was revitalized through the involvement of several companies, including Carl Friedrich Denekes . The re-establishment took place on August 1, 1843. In the absence of statutory stock exchange regulations, there were no stock exchange regulations .
Trading took place between 11:30 a.m. and 12:30 p.m. On Tuesdays and Thursdays the prices for grain , potatoes , oil and spirits as well as for some company papers were determined. Initially, share trading was limited to the papers of the Magdeburg-Halberstädter Railway , the Magdeburg-Köthen-Halle-Leipzig Railway Company and the United Steamship Company . Other regional papers such as that of the Magdeburg private bank were added later. Gold was also traded .
On January 19, 1863, stock exchange regulations were issued. It banned women from entering the stock exchange. Insolvent or bankrupt people were also not allowed in. Otherwise, access was only dependent on the purchase of a stock exchange card . Nevertheless, it is reported that a significant part of the stock exchange activity did not take place in the Alter Markt 5–6 building, but on the street in front of it. In 1868, in order to remove the obstacle to traffic, the chief of police saw himself compelled to forbid such gatherings with the threat of punishment of one taler. This problem was not finally resolved until 1872, when the stock exchange moved from the first floor to the ground floor of the building. The elders of the city's merchants supervised the stock exchange.
After the end of the Franco-Prussian War in 1870/71 , the stock exchange experienced a significant upturn . The reparations payments made by France to Germany also resulted in an economic recovery in the Magdeburg area. In addition, there were reliefs in the legal requirements for the formation of a stock corporation , it was sufficient to prepare a prospectus. The stock exchange in Magdeburg benefited from these favorable framework conditions.
As early as 1873, however, there was the so-called founder crash , which was accompanied by bank failures and a sharp fall in prices. The Magdeburg Stock Exchange became largely meaningless.
Sugar exchange
Magdeburg and Magdeburg were by the extraction of sugar from locally grown beets has become an important center of the European sugar industry. The sugar trade gained considerably in importance from 1875. From 1876, sugar was listed on the Magdeburg stock exchange. In addition to Paris and London , the Magdeburg Stock Exchange achieved the status of a leading global stock exchange. While London and Paris mainly traded sugar from colonial areas made from sugar cane , sugar made from beets dominated in Magdeburg. With the increasing importance of the sugar trade, the other products faded into the background. There were official quotations for this until 1895, but the actual product trade was practically limited to sugar and grain. Since 1883 the rate for sugar has been fixed on a daily basis.
In 1885, several Magdeburg companies founded the German Sugar Export Association in Magdeburg . These efforts were led by Bernhard Lippert and Hermann Reichardt . The association established a commodity futures exchange for sugar on the Magdeburg Stock Exchange . The first official quotation for sugar futures prices was carried out on August 2, 1886. The Magdeburg Sugar Futures Exchange was founded even before the corresponding futures exchanges in London or Hamburg were founded .
With the establishment of the futures exchange, the sugar suppliers pursued the goal of becoming more independent from the world market and its fluctuations. In this way, the sugar could be sold at a known price before it was produced.
However, the forward transactions were also speculative. In 1889 the Magdeburg sugar crash , which can be traced back to speculative transactions , took place .
In response to the sugar crash, a liquidation fund was set up in Magdeburg, based on the Hamburg model . The Magdeburger Liquidationskasse , founded as a stock corporation with a share capital of three million marks, ensured the fulfillment of forward transactions.
The growing importance of the Magdeburg Stock Exchange, which was also known as the Sugar Exchange, led to plans in 1885 to build a new building specially planned for the stock exchange. A plot of land on what was then Kaiser-Wilhelm-Platz (today's Universitätsplatz ) was planned as the construction site . However, there was no agreement on the purchase price with the city of Magdeburg as the property owner.
In 1886 and 1887 the Berlin and Hamburg stock exchanges tried to attract the Magdeburg sugar trade. The Association of the German Sugar Industry, originally founded in Magdeburg, supported Berlin. A Magdeburg commission headed by Friedrich August Neubauer , in which Otto Pilet and Wilhelm Zuckschwerdt were also involved, managed to keep this lucrative trade on the Magdeburg stock exchange. The commission came to the conclusion that to strengthen the Magdeburg sugar trade, the construction of new storage facilities was necessary in order to provide larger storage capacities and to assert itself against Hamburg in particular. The members of the merchants Otto Hubbe , Wilhelm Hauswaldt and Max Dürre , who also act as honorary city councilors, ensured that the city administration provided the appropriate financial means in 1888. Two large new sugar storage facilities were built in Magdeburg's new trading port.
In 1896 a stock exchange law came into force, which brought about radical changes. Futures trading in grain and flour was banned. For commodity futures was a register forced introduced. In Magdeburg, the stock exchange regulations were also revised. The grain exchange was dissolved and the stock exchange supervision tightened.
However, formal exchange status only existed for sugar futures trading. The other trading activities, especially securities, but also trading in raw sugar or refined sugar, were regarded as a stock exchange-like gathering and were not subject to the stricter regulations of the new stock exchange law.
However, the introduction of compulsory registration in particular led to a significant decline in trading volume. However, the compulsory registration was lifted again in 1903 in the course of an amendment to the law.
The beginning of the First World War also brought an export ban on sugar. All sugar futures transactions that were made were canceled. The sugar exchange as well as other securities and product trading on the Magdeburg exchange were discontinued. Even after the end of the war, there was initially no resumption of trading due to the ongoing forced economy, also in connection with reparation payments.
Revival after the First World War
,_Federzeichnung,_Das_Geb%C3%A4ude_der_Handelskammer,_(Magdeburg).jpg)
In 1921 the first stock exchange-like meeting of the Magdeburg Stock Exchange took place for securities. The increasing industrialization of Magdeburg had meanwhile increased the economic importance of the city apart from sugar. Also due to an overload of the Berlin stock exchange, an official securities exchange was reopened in Magdeburg on February 20, 1923. 68 papers, including those from 30 stock corporations, were officially listed. In Open Market 52 more papers were traded. Exchange-like meetings were held again for grain, colonial goods and local products. In August 1923 an official product and grain exchange was founded. In 1925, following changes in tax law, the sugar futures exchange was re-established, with the quotations exclusively for white sugar. At the same time, a sugar futures exchange was founded again on the Hamburg stock exchange .
Decline
In later years the Magdeburg Stock Exchange lost its importance alongside the other major German stock exchanges. In particular, sales on the sugar futures exchange also fell. In the course of the Second World War , it ceased its activity. The building on Alter Markt used by the stock exchange was destroyed in an air raid. Due to the socialist orientation of the GDR , there was no revival of the stock exchange after the end of the war.
literature
- Helmut Asmus, 1200 Years Magdeburg, 1848 - Present , Volume 3, Magdeburg 2005, page 287 f.
- Jörg Eberhardt, Thomas Mayrhofer, Annual Report 2001 of the Studentisches Börsenverein Magdeburg eV , Magdeburg 2002
credentials
- ↑ Eberhardt, Mayrhofer, Annual Report 2001, page 13 f.
Coordinates: 52 ° 7 '54 " N , 11 ° 38' 16.1" E