About Smartbroker Holding AG

Despite the challenging stock market environment, the Group made important progress in both business areas, Media and Transaction.

Investments in Smartbroker 2.0, the further development of our digital broker for private investors and savers, continued in 2022. Smartbroker again received several awards, including by Handelsblatt, Germany’s leading broadsheet covering business and finance, and Euro, a leading weekly finance publication. In addition, Smartbroker has been named the most favorable brokerage provider by Finanztest.

The Group bundled all self-produced editorial offerings in the newly founded wallstreet:online Publishing GmbH and launched a new editorial team for paid premium content. In addition, our capabilities to produce own video content were expanded.

To reflect our strategic focus in the company name, wallstreet:online AG was renamed Smartbroker Holding AG and wallstreet:online capital AG was renamed Smartbroker AG. In addition, the increase of the group’s shareholding in the Smartbroker operator Smartbroker AG to 100% was successfully completed. Company founder André Kolbinger was reappointed to the Management Board in the middle of the year and assumed the role of CEO.

The Group more than doubled the number of securities accounts and assets under custody. At the end of the year, wallstreet:online (Smartbroker Holding AG since July 2022) managed 240,000 securities accounts, 200,000 thereof through its multiple award-winning neo broker Smartbroker.

The Company established itself as the largest next generation broker operator by assets under custody in Germany and recorded assets under custody of over €8.8 billion. This corresponds to a volume of around €37,000 per securities account and is thus well above the usual average for conventional neo brokers. The digital full-service broker Smartbroker once again received numerous awards, including 1st place in the brokerage category of the bank test conducted by the trade magazine "Euro".

In addition, wallstreet:online AG (Smartbroker Holding AG since July 2022) expanded its stake in the Smartbroker operator wallstreet:online capital AG (Smartbroker AG since July 2022) to over 95% and initiated the extension of wallstreet:online capital AG's ‘KWG’ license to cover further securities services. The Group expanded its headcount and, with Matthias Hach as CEO and Roland Nicklaus as CFO, gained two industry experts for the further implementation of the ambitious business strategy.

Smartbroker gained more than 80k customers in its first year of business. At the end of the year, the group had more than €4bn in assets under custody. On its financial news portals, it achieved an average of 290m monthly page views, representing more than 100% year-on-year growth, and counted more than 800k registered users in its online finance communities, up +9% compared to 2019.

In addition, Smartbroker received several awards, including the renowned "Best Broker" and "Best Fund Trading and Savings Plans" awards from Euro and Euro am Sonntag, respectively, as well as top rankings in the Focus Money lists for "Best ETF Savings Plans" and "Top Securities Savings Plans".

The most significant event of the year took place in the last month: the market entry of Smartbroker was prepared throughout the year and finally completed in December.

In February, Smartbroker Holding AG acquired ABC New Media AG with its financial information portal www.finanzNachrichten.de. Further acquisitions of ariva.de and Smart Investor were successfully completed in April and October, respectively. As a result, monthly page impressions grew by more than 70% year-on-year to 139m (average 2019). In April, Germany’s securities regulator “BaFin” approved the investment in wallstreet:online capital AG (operator of fondsDiscount.de), setting an important prerequisite for the launch of Smartbroker at the end of the year.

In February 2018, wallstreet:online AG merged with Markets Inside Media GmbH, which operates the news portal www.boersennews.de and the accompanying app. In the same year, the group’s financial media portals surpassed the milestone of 100m monthly page impressions for the first time.

The company achieved important organic growth targets and developed into one of the go-to addresses for financial and capital market news in German.

In May 2010, André Kolbinger reacquired 75% of the shares in Smartbroker Holding AG from Axel Springer SE.

In February 2006, Smartbroker Holding AG’s shares were included in the Open Standard segment of the Frankfurt Stock Exchange.

In May 2007, the majority of shares in Smartbroker Holding AG were acquired by Axel Springer SE. This was followed by the change to the Entry Standard of Frankfurt Stock Exchange in the same year.

In 2003, the Kolbinger family took over all shares that had previously been held by financial investors. Until the end of 2004, the company was restructured and reorganized under the leadership of André Kolbinger.

GIS Wirtschaftsdaten GmbH was renamed wallstreet:online GmbH and changed its legal form to a stock corporation. In the same year, the company was able to place two capital increases and gain the venture capital companies 3i and T-Venture as shareholders.

Today's Smartbroker Holding AG emerged from GIS Wirtschaftsdaten GmbH, which was founded in 1998. From the beginning, the main business activity was the marketing of the finance portal www.wallstreet-online.de.