NYSE wraps up Euronext purchase
NYSE Euronext made its market debut as the world’s first transatlantic stock exchange Wednesday, and already company executives have begun to feel the pressure about what’s next.
Top executives at the world’s biggest stock exchange were present for ceremonies at the 19th century Paris Bourse in the morning, and later flew to the United States, where they rang the closing bell at the New York Stock Exchange.
John Thain, NYSE Euronext’s chief executive, said the first line of business was to smooth out the integration process. But the architect of the NYSE’s $14-billion takeover of Euronext also has expansion plans on his mind.
The first order of business may be to build on its strategic alliance with Tokyo even before the Japanese exchange reaches its goal of going public by 2009.
“That’s the time frame that really they are operating on, but really we would hope to further our relations with them between then and now,” Thain said at the Paris Bourse, where a screen set up on the exchange’s former trading floor broadcast the live opening NYSE Euronext shares.
NYSE Euronext, which already owns a stake in India’s National Stock Market, also sees opportunity in connecting Europe’s string of independent exchanges. It remains open to a deal with Frankfurt’s Deutsche Boerse, which had competed with the NYSE to acquire Euronext.
An offer to incorporate Deutsche Boerse’s cash equities business “is still open, but it’s up to them also to react,” Euronext Chairman Jan-Michiel Hessels said in Paris. He said the rest of Europe -- which includes OM Group that runs the Nordic exchanges and national markets such as Borsa Italiana -- is ripe for consolidation.
NYSE Euronext has not yet been actively approached by other European bourses, but Hessels said they might have been “waiting until we first closed our transaction and got into an operation mode together.”
The creation of NYSE Euronext will allow stocks and other securities to be traded about 13 hours a day across two continents. Euronext encompasses stock markets with headquarters in Paris, Amsterdam, Brussels and Lisbon, as well as the London derivatives market LIFFE.
