Challengers Taking On London Exchange : Stock market: The new system wants to cater to higher risk, growth companies in Europe. It could be up and running by next year.

Four new stock exchange systems are poised to slice into an investment pie that has been, up until now, controlled by the London Stock Exchange.

The European Assn. of Securities Dealers (EASD) is the latest group to announce its intention to launch an automated screen-based trading system Easdaq, or EASD Automated Quotation, offering investors an alternative to the London Stock Exchange.

Easdaq will cater to higher risk, growth companies throughout Europe, and could be up and running by next year.

The Easdaq market would be a European parallel to the computer-based Nasdaq system in the United States that boasts many rapidly growing high-technology companies.

Electronic Share Information Ltd., a Cambridge, England-based company, intends to launch an automated screen-based “enterprise exchange” for small-capitalized British companies.

Electronic Share is in discussions with Britain’s Securities and Investment Board, and hopes to start a pilot run in the first quarter of 1995 with a full launch by June.

The Electronic Share and EASD decisions to challenge the London Stock Exchange’s dominant position in its own market comes on the heels of the demise of the Unlisted Securities Market, scheduled to close in 1996 due to a European Union directive.

Electronic Share claims entrepreneurial companies may find it difficult to attract investors after the Unlisted Securities Market folds.

“If you’re a smaller, high-risk company, where will you go to find capital?” said Jack Lang, Electronic Share’s director.

The London Stock Exchange claims smaller companies and investors need look no further than a new Alternative Investment Market, designed to fill the gap left by the Unlisted Securities Market.

The exchange published a consultative document for the new market at the beginning of September and hopes to have the Alternative market running by June 1995.

While fighting a rear-guard action to stave off competition in the small-firms sector, the London Stock Exchange must also lock horns with Tradepoint, which will offer dealing services to institutional clients in the largest capitalized stocks, the Financial Times index of 100 stocks, or FTSE 100.

Tradepoint expects to have regulatory approval in the next few months but is not quoting a specific start-up timetable. “It’s all in the hands of the SIB (Securities and Investment Board) but we don’t anticipate any problems,” said Peter Bennett, Tradepoint’s chief executive.

Bennett said Tradepoint’s automated screen-based system would be open for business about two months after receiving the regulatory go-ahead.

Finally, Liberty, a wholly owned subsidiary of the Eurobond settlements group, Cedel, which launched a dealing service in U.S. equities last month, is expected to offer international investors a trading facility in British stocks, perhaps by the end of 1995, which will bypass the London Stock Exchange’s SEAQ, or Stock Exchange Automated Quotations System used to trade large blocks of shares.

Liberty says its users can enter an order on its screen-based dealing system from anywhere in the world, verify its accuracy, and receive an execution and confirmation on their screen or printer in less than 30 seconds.

The London Stock Exchange said it is prepared to meet the challenge of any and all newcomers.

“We’re not complacent but not overly worried about the competition from other trading services. There is no evidence that there is a demand for order-driven systems,” a London Stock Exchange spokeswoman said.

However, she said, the London Stock Exchange’s new “Sequence” trading and information system will incorporate software that will allow screen-based automated trading if the market decides the current market-making system is no longer desirable.