After three weeks, the world's largest bottling plant manufacturer Krones is back in one of the most important stock market indices in Germany.

The Bavarian company will move up to the small-cap index SDax next Monday (October 9), as announced by Deutsche Börse on Thursday night. Krones replaces the Linux specialist Suse from Nuremberg, which is now 98 percent owned by its major shareholder, the financial investor EQT, and has therefore been removed from the SDax. The prerequisite for index membership is a free float of at least ten percent.

Krones was forced to leave the MDax small-cap index in September because the company had violated a rule of the Corporate Governance Code - apparently without being aware of the consequences for its index classification. The former CFO had been elected Chairman of the Audit Committee of the Supervisory Board after the Annual General Meeting in May - although as an ex-manager he is not considered independent according to the Code. The violation was immediately remedied by replacing the chairman. Without Suse's departure, however, Krones would have had to wait until the next index review in December. Then the company can also hope for a return to the MDax - based on the market value of the free float, Krones would currently easily qualify for this.

(Report by Alexander Hübner. Edited by Olaf Brenner. If you have any questions, please contact our editorial team at berlin.newsroom@thomsonreuters.com (for politics and the economy) or frankfurt.newsroom@thomsonreuters.com (for companies and markets).)