Looking for liquidity in Germany

OXFORD - Facing a moribund trading environment, some of Germany's biggest biotech names hope to offer investors more liquidity by splitting their stocks. Evotec BioSystems AG (NMarkt:EVO) and Qiagen N.V. (NMarkt:QIA; QGENF) last week announced intentions to undertake share splits in the coming weeks, while MorphoSys AG (NMarkt:MOR) and MWG-Biotech AG (NMarkt:NWU) confirmed to Ebb & Flow that they too are about to announce share split proposals to shareholders.

Market watchers said the share splits could increase liquidity and attract greater retail investment at a time when share prices are relatively high. Indeed, by comparison to U.S. companies in the same market cap space, the German companies have relatively few shares outstanding (see "Time to Split," above). ...