FRANKFURT (dpa-AFX) - Exceeded profit targets and a surprisingly high dividend from Munich Re did not drive the shares of the reinsurer in the long term on Tuesday. After a jump of more than 2 percent at the start of trading to a record high of 430.30 euros, the shares turned downwards. At the end of the day, they were trading at 421.30 euros, just slightly down. Nevertheless, the 2024 shares were among the strongest DAX stocks with a price gain of almost 12 percent.

The world's largest reinsurer has exceeded its profit target for 2023, which was raised in the fall. Shareholders are also set to receive a dividend of 15 euros per share, which is 3.40 euros more than a year earlier. Experts had expected significantly less. As expected, the Group also intends to buy back its own shares for 1.5 billion euros.

Initial comments from traders were positive about the news regarding the returns. Business development in the previous year was initially assessed as "mixed". Analysts were also positively surprised by the profit distribution.

The reinsurer had once again proven its ability to meet its own targets, said JPMorgan analyst Kamran Hossain. Although the Munich-based company had earned unexpectedly little operationally, there was hardly any reason to doubt this year's profit targets. After the above-average share price performance since mid-2022, the challenge is to make the results more sustainable or to grow even faster than the market expects.

RBC analyst Derald Goh called the surprisingly sharp rise in distributions to shareholders the "highlight of the day". His colleague Philip Kett from the analyst firm Jefferies also praised the promised return of capital to shareholders, but criticized the results for the fourth quarter. Although net profit met the consensus estimate and was even ten percent above the company's target, this was only due to tax reasons./edh/tih/jha/