New investor at Rocket Internet

Just recently, Rocket Internet withdrew from the stock exchange and not only had to justify itself to shareholders, but is also being sued. Now there is a new challenge: New investor Paul Singer holds 15 percent of the company and is presumably betting on a profitable offer.

After Rocket Internet completed its stock market withdrawal in October, its shares are now only traded on the Hamburg Stock Exchange. The company had gone public in 2014 with a value of 42.50 euros per share, the Samwer brothers, founders and owners, had offered 18.57 euros as a buyback offer for shareholders before the stock market withdrawal. Not all accepted and could now profit: The value of the share rose to over 21 euros on Tuesday and shares worth three million euros were sold.

The sudden boost is due to the new shareholder structure that Rocket published: according to it, investor Paul Singer holds 15 percent in the company through his fund Elliott. Presumably, Singer is banking on a higher buyback offer from Rocket. This could happen for a number of reasons: It is suspected that Oliver Samwer, head of Rocket Internet, wants all shareholders out of the company in the long term. For this, Singer would also have to buy out with his 15 percent. Samwer himself is the main shareholder with 49.6 percent. In addition, there is pressure from another side: There are currently complaints from some shareholders about the stock market withdrawal. They are criticizing the fact that the buyback offer was relatively low and that the compensation came from the company itself and not, as usual, from a shareholder. Oliver Samwer had also repeatedly emphasized that Rocket had no plans to withdraw from the stock exchange. However, the stock exchange regulators did not see any problem with this.

Singer, an investor, is known for pressuring companies by buying shares, as he did with Bayer during the height of the glyphosate scandal. He gained worldwide notoriety in 2001 when he successfully bet on Argentina's sovereign default.