New hope for German investors

Dusseldorf Investors who bought shares in Russian companies such as Gazprom, Lukoil or Sberbank on the stock market have been stuck in this investment for over a year. Now the Bundesbank has announced how these Russian investors can still get their money.

Specifically, it concerns depositary receipts on Russian stocks, so-called ADRs. These are traded on the stock exchange on behalf of the shares. They are issued by US banks, which have stored the original shares in a depository at a Russian bank. This is not unusual when companies are not listed on the domestic stock exchange.

However, as a result of the Ukraine war and the associated sanctions, Russia has ended many of these ADR programs for Western investors. If they want to prevent a forced sale, they must convert the ADRs into actual common shares. However, for a long time this was hardly possible for German investors.