wallstreet:online AG plans renaming - Smartbroker’s significance to be reflected in the company’s name

wallstreet:online AG plans renaming - Smartbroker’s significance to be reflected in the company’s name

- wallstreet:online AG plans to change its name in order to emphasise the Group’s strategic focus

- Name to be changed to Smartbroker Holding AG

- Subsidiary wallstreet:online capital AG to become Smartbroker AG

Berlin, 18 May 2022

Two and a half years after its launch, Smartbroker has firmly established itself as one of Germany’s leading digital personal investment platforms. Just a few weeks ago, wallstreet:online’s (ISIN DE000A2GS609, FSE: WSO1) offering received the ‘Handelsblatt’ award for the ‘best online broker of the year’^[1]. Before that, Smartbroker has won several other awards, including the ‘Bankentest 2021’ (category: brokerage) conducted by the trade magazine ‘Euro’^[2]. During Q1 2022, the Berlin-based business recorded around 16,000 new securities accounts, in line with its plans for the year. With assets under custody of approximately €9.1 billion, the Smartbroker operator wallstreet:online capital AG has rapidly moved to become the largest neo broker operator in Germany.

To reflect this dynamic development, wallstreet:online AG is now planning to change its name and has today published a respective proposal, to be voted on at its Annual General Meeting on 24 June 2022. The corresponding agenda of WSO’s Annual General Meeting has been published on 17 May 2022 in the Federal Gazette (Bundesanzeiger).

New corporate identity will be based on Smartbroker design

Specifically, wallstreet:online AG proposes to change its company name to Smartbroker Holding AG. Likewise, the subsidiary wallstreet:online capital AG intends to change its name to Smartbroker AG. Reflecting the core brand Smartbroker, the new names express the strategic focus implemented during the past 2.5 years, that is gradually forming the business into one of Germany’s leading digital personal investment platforms. In terms of corporate identity, both companies also intend to follow Smartbroker’s new design, which is to be launched together with "Smartbroker 2.0" and the proprietary trading app in the second half of 2022.

Media offerings continue to operate under the wallstreet:online name

The market presence of the editorial and media offerings of the wallstreet:online group (in particular the four financial portals wallstreet-online.de, finanznachrichten.de, ariva.de, boersennews.de and their related communities and mobile apps) remain unchanged and will continue to be operated under their existing brands. The group’s media portfolio includes: wallstreet:online AG, Markets Inside Media GmbH, ABC New Media AG, Ariva.de AG, Smart Investor Media GmbH and wallstreet:online Publishing GmbH.

Matthias Hach, CEO of wallstreet:online AG and wallstreet:online capital AG on the rebranding plans: "For the entire team, the Smartbroker has been the driving theme for quite some time. In a sense, the product has become the vision for the group and therefore it is only right that we bring our strongest brand to the forefront. wallstreet:online capital AG , as the BaFin-licensed operating company of our neo broker, is to be called Smartbroker AG. WSO, as the parent company, is to be named Smartbroker Holding AG. The renaming also makes Smartbroker more visible in the capital markets and hence investors will find it easier to relate our unrivalled product with our own listed entity."

About the wallstreet:online Group:

The wallstreet:online Group operates the Smartbroker - a multiple award-winning online broker, which is the only provider in Germany to combine the extensive product range of traditional brokers with the extremely favourable conditions of neo-brokers. At the same time, the Group operates four high-reach stock market portals (wallstreet-online.de, boersenNews.de, FinanzNachrichten.de and ARIVA.de). With several hundred million monthly page impressions, the Group is the by far largest publisher-independent financial portal operator in German-speaking countries and hosts the largest finance community.

Press contact:
Felix Rentzsch
Head of Communications
Phone: +49 (0)176 4165 0721
Email: f.rentzsch@wallstreet-online.de

Investor Relations contact:
Sabrina Kassmannhuber
Investor Relations Manager
Phone: +49 (0)30 20 456 500
Email: ir@wallstreet-online.de

^[1] Handelsblatt, 2 May 2022: "These are the best online brokers": https://www.handelsblatt.com/finanzen/banken-versicherungen/banken/ranking-das-sind-die-besten-onlinebroker-2022/28290936.html

^[2] Euro, edition 5/21, page 115: 'Best Banks 2021'