Freenet DE000A0Z2ZZ5 shares were sold on Thursday following the telecom company's figures.

The North German company's shares slipped more than 4 percent below their Xetra closing price on the Tradegate trading platform before trading began, trading at EUR 33.84.

Barclays expert Mathieu Robilliard spoke of a sluggish start to the year, noting that both sales and operating profit were weaker than expected.

Meanwhile, his colleagues at Oddo BHF even downgraded the shares to "underperform." Their price target of €30 had recently been significantly exceeded in the wake of the share price rally since the beginning of April. At the beginning of this month, Freenet shares were trading at €37.56, the highest price since 2000.