Listed in Frankfurt without asking: what an unsolicited German listing means for you
Many TSXV, CSE and ASX companies are quoted in Germany without ever applying. How that happens, which obligations it creates (almost none), whether you can remove it, and how to find out what it is worth.
Some CEOs of Canadian and Australian juniors learn about their German listing by chance: a shareholder in Munich asks about the stock, or the ticker turns up on a German finance portal next to a six-character code nobody at the company has seen before. The company never applied. So who listed it, and what does it mean?
The short answer: it is legal, it is common, it creates almost no obligations for you, and on its own it does very little. This article explains the details.
How a company gets listed without applying
German exchanges run two kinds of markets. The regulated market is where a company lists by applying, with a prospectus and ongoing reporting duties. The open market, or Freiverkehr, is organised by the exchanges themselves under their own terms. At the Frankfurt Stock Exchange, its Quotation Board takes in shares that are already admitted to trading on another exchange, such as the TSX Venture, the CSE or the ASX.
Under the terms of the German exchanges, a trading firm acting as specialist can apply to include such shares in the open market. It does not need the issuer’s consent. If the firm expects enough demand from investors, it applies, the exchange includes the shares, and from then on the specialist quotes prices. Depending on the exchange, you may receive a notice. An objection by the issuer does not stop the inclusion.
Along the way, your shares receive a German securities code, the WKN, alongside your ISIN. German investors and their brokers often search by WKN, which is why it may look unfamiliar to you.
What it obliges you to do
Almost nothing. The German Stock Exchange Act (§ 48 BörsG) states that an issuer whose shares were included in the open market without its consent cannot be required by the exchange’s terms to publish information about those shares. There is no contract between you and the German exchange, no German financial reporting and no German prospectus.
The EU Market Abuse Regulation (MAR) does not change that for your disclosure. Its duty to publish inside information, Article 17, applies to issuers who requested or approved the admission or trading of their shares on an EU venue. If you did neither, it does not apply to you. Your obligations remain those of your home exchange.
What does apply is the EU prohibition of insider dealing and market manipulation. It covers trading in your shares on German venues, whoever placed the order.
Can you remove it?
In practice, no. Between you and the specialist, you have no right to have the listing terminated. Your shares may be included on several German exchanges at once, and any other specialist could apply to include them again. Exchanges end an inclusion for their own reasons, for example when trades can no longer be settled, not on request of the issuer.
Most companies have no reason to try. A German quote costs you nothing and gives German private investors a way to buy your shares through their usual broker.
What the listing is worth
On its own, very little. A specialist quotes a price, but volume only comes when German investors know your company and have a reason to buy it.
Five of the six companies in our case studies had German trading before we started covering them, but at very different levels. In the six months before coverage, 10,000 Quimbaya Gold shares and 140,428 Prismo Metals shares changed hands on all German venues combined. At Silver Tiger Metals it was 2.0 million shares, still only 3.1 % of its total trading against Toronto.
Formation Metals had no German trading at all. When we started covering the company in January 2025, we also brought the stock to German exchanges. In the first six months, Germany accounted for 39.5 % of its trading.
The difference between a quote and a market is not the listing. It is whether German investors hear about you.
What to do now
- Find out where you are quoted. Search your ISIN on a German finance portal such as onvista. The venue list shows every German exchange that quotes your shares: typically Frankfurt, Tradegate, Stuttgart, gettex, LS Exchange and Munich.
- Measure your German volume across all venues. A single venue can be badly misleading. Add up all German venues and compare the total with your home exchange. Our results page shows how we calculate it.
- Check what German investors find about you. If someone in Germany searches your company name or WKN, do they find current, German-language information, or only a price chart?
- No German quote yet? You can have one set up, as Formation Metals did. We can help with that as part of our coverage.
If you would like to know what your German listing is doing today, request a free German trading check. We send you your German volume across all venues, your German share of trading and the monthly trend.
Disclosure: Formation Metals, Prismo Metals, Quimbaya Gold and Silver Tiger Metals are clients of GOLDINVEST. More on how we are paid and how we handle conflicts of interest: Conflict of interest. Volume data: onvista (German venues), Yahoo Finance (home exchanges). This article is general information, not legal advice. Sources: § 48 Börsengesetz; Regulation (EU) No 596/2014 (MAR), Art. 17; Deutsche Börse, market structure of the Frankfurt Stock Exchange; Noerr, “Unsolicited listings of foreign shares in Germany”.