Von Ralf Keuper

Bis­lang galt das deut­sche Ban­ken­sys­tem als Trei­ber des Grün­dungs­booms in der Kai­ser­zeit im Zeit­raum von 1890–1914. Die Rol­le der Bör­se trat dem­ge­gen­über in den Hin­ter­grund. Wie die Stu­die The Ber­lin Stock Exch­an­ge in Impe­ri­al Ger­ma­ny – A Mar­ket for New Tech­no­lo­gy? jedoch zeigt, wand­ten sich die Grün­der der Kai­ser­zeit häu­fig direkt an die Bör­se, um die nöti­gen finan­zi­el­len Mit­tel für ihre “Start­ups” ein­zu­sam­meln. Für ihre Arbeit aus dem Jahr 2015 erhiel­ten die bei­den Wirt­schafts­his­to­ri­ker Jochen Streb und Sibyl­le Leh­mann-Hase­mey­er nun von der Uni­ver­si­tät Hohen­heim den Schm­öl­ders-Preis 2018.

Zur Beur­tei­lung der Erfolgs­aus­sich­ten sowie als Sicher­heit dien­ten den Inves­to­ren die Paten­te der jun­gen auf­stre­ben­den Unternehmen:

In the Ger­man Empire, it was obvious­ly well unders­tood too that patents could ser­ve as a posi­ti­ve signal that increased the attrac­ti­ve­ness of a firm’s shares. The Salin­ger Bör­sen­hand­buch, a wide­ly-used stock mar­ket manu­al that pro­vi­ded infor­ma­ti­on about exis­ting joint-stock com­pa­nies, often re-published details about firm-spe­ci­fic patent port­fo­li­os the com­pa­nies them­sel­ves had alre­a­dy reve­a­led when adver­ti­sing their IPOs in lis­ting pro­s­pec­tu­ses. In 1904, for exam­p­le, Salin­ger Bör­sen­hand­buch empha­si­zed that the inno­va­ti­ve wall­pa­per-prin­ting machi­nes inven­ted by machi­ne buil­der Carl Schoe­ning AG (IPO in 1903) were paten­ted in all important indus­tria­li­zed count­ries. In 1911, it gave detail­ed infor­ma­ti­on about the num­ber and life­spans of the natio­nal and inter­na­tio­nal patents held by Carl Lind­ström AG (IPO in 1910) which was enga­ged in pre­cis­i­on engineering.

Die Autoren kom­men zu dem Schluss:

This paper clo­ses this gap of know­ledge at least part­ly by show­ing that, sin­ce the 1890s, many inno­va­ti­ve com­pa­nies reli­ed on the Ber­lin stock exch­an­ge as a source of finan­cing. Even more sur­pri­sing is the fact that inno­va­tors were not pena­li­zed by rela­tively high under­pri­zing or low first tra­ding pri­ces. In the oppo­si­te, inno­va­ti­ve start-ups that nee­ded equi­ty capi­tal to run their ris­ky R&D pro­jects rea­li­zed com­pa­ra­tively high offe­ring pri­ces, and, in the lon­ger run, they did not per­form worse than more sea­so­ned cor­po­ra­ti­ons. The­se fin­dings not only sug­gest that con­tem­po­ra­ry inves­tors asso­cia­ted inno­va­ti­ve­ness with hig­her future pro­fits. It is also strong evi­dence for the assump­ti­on that con­tem­po­ra­ry inves­tors had ratio­nal expectations.

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