Recent Developments in Ownership Structures of German Listed Firms : From Cross-Ownership to Common Ownership

We study recent developments on the ownership of listed German firms. Based on a large panel with 9,501 firm-year observations spanning the period 2006-2021, we document four key results: (i) holdings of institutional investors gain in importance in German listed equity, (ii) foreign investors, in particular investors from the United States, gain ground within the cohort of institutional investors, (iii) relatedly, Sovereign Wealth Funds and “The Big Three” increase their relevance in German listed equity, and finally, (iv) ownership of German listed firms is no longer characterized by cross-ownership, but increasingly by common ownership