“Some banks were wondering”

The special glass manufacturer Schott has again placed a Schuldschein for the first time after ten years. This time the Mainz-based company used DEBTVISION, a digital platform, to bring the three-year running paper to market. “It was important for us to take a bank-independent approach,” explains Dieter Worf, Head of Treasury at Schott.

The Schott Treasury has completely arranged the latest Schuldschein, which has a volume of EUR 30 million, itself. And this despite the fact that DEBTVISION has the Schuldschein-Platzhirsch LBBW and the Börse Stuttgart among its shareholders. „We wanted to leverage all the advantages of such a platform. This includes being able to handle such a transaction without the help of a bank,“ says Worf. The approach has caused quite a stir in the banking world: „Some banks were surprised and asked once again whether we really want to go exclusively via the platform,” Worf says. From his point of view, the banks must prepare themselves for the fact that in future they will no longer be able to play a role in standardised debt capital products. At the same time, Worf emphasizes that the core banks, including the Stuttgarter Landesbank, remain important. „For larger issues of more than EUR 100 million, a company is certainly dependent on the marketing power of the banks.

Read the complete article and the interview in the e-magazine DerTreasurer issue 4 from 21 February 2019:
https://www.dertreasurer.de/e-magazin/