There’s a great line up to discuss the CEE markets, CMU and the EBRD sponsored SEE Link September 15th in Warsaw ahead of the 2nd CEE Capital Markets awards. The excellent Vienna Bourse CFO Petr Koblic is the latest addition to a great lineup of panellists including Zagreb CEO Ivana Gazic and Sofia CEO Ivan Takev. Keynote Speakers include Florence Bindelle of European Issuers and Hannes Takacs of EBRD. If you are interested in CEE capital markets and indeed CMU or SEE Link, this is the must attend event for issuers, intermediaries, exchanges and CSDs. I look forward to chairing the CEE CMU summit. Rates are very attractive: from €295 for the summit, to €595 for the Gala & Summit together. Email me or follow this link HERE to sign up.
In the parish today, ICAP-TNT voice broker trade getting closer with oil desk deals lined up as SGX looks to formally bid for the Baltic Exchange. Meanwhile BoNY is the last major GCM for US Treasury’s – which is at best surreal, at worst scarcely credible for the market size.
Oh and thanks for all that feedback on Korn Ferry in lieu of their magnificent carpet bag from ASX reported yesterday. Amazingly only (Korn Ferry user) Duncan ‘the Value Destroyer’ has ever attracted a bigger (and more vitriolic) post bag. Recruitment consultants are clearly the new estate agents in the opinion of the parish.
Public Markets
UK’s CMA Has Accepted In Principle Merger Undertakings Offered By Tullett & ICAP
Reuters
Tullett Sees ‘Plenty’ of Bidder Interest in ICAP Oil Asset Sale
John Detrixhe – Bloomberg
Considers that proposed undertakings of Tullett and ICAP are appropriate to remedy its competition concerns, has accepted them in principle. Before reaching a final decision, it is inviting interested parties to make their views known.
PLY: TNT says the sales are on track. Hopefully CMA will be able to ignore the “haters gonna hate” correspondence from those who see a monopoly at every turn…
Tullett Prebon Targets Broking Team Boost As ICAP Deal Nears End (subscription)
Philip Stafford – Financial Times
Tullett Prebon will look to hire more teams of brokers that trade over the phone even as it closes in on its transformative deal to buy the global broking business of rival ICAP.
QV Premium: Exchange Deals Brief – M&As.
PLY: As noted the other day: “Clearly if you find any brokers in a cupboard or cowering by the coffee machine, ring John Phizackerley’s team and they will come and take them away while providing a modest consideration.”
TMX Says Derivatives Head Leaves
Reuters
TMX Derivatives head Alain Miquelon, has left to pursue other opportunities (More in Careers Paths section).
PLY: Farewell to Alain Miquelon, wonder is he joining NASDAQ, it seems quite the vogue at TMX nowadays? Meanwhile rumours continue to swirl on Bay Street that TMX CEO Lou Eccleston has already opted not to extend his contract beyond next year. Certainly an air of listlessness is the current outside perspective on TMX as it seems to be struggling to find its place in the modern exchange world. Perhaps they ought to ask a few friendly shale frackers to explain how to be super nimble in a hypercompetitive marketplace?
SGX Prepares Formal Offer To Buy UK’s Baltic Exchange
Anshuman Daga & Jonathan Saul – Reuters
SGX is readying a formal offer to buy London’s Baltic Exchange following months of discussions that culminated in exclusive talks between both parties.
SEC Developing Pilot Test Of Incentive-Free Trading
Dave Michaels – MarketWatch
U.S. market regulators are developing a pilot program that would test exchange trading without the incentives markets pay to attract orders from high-frequency traders and other brokers, SEC Chairman Mary Jo White said Tuesday.
PLY: Maker Taker I once liked but have grown cynical about in recent years. Just can’t see what it adds. I remain to be convinced either way, this study may help. Meanwhile, direct payment for order flow and the wholesale purchasing of small orders by aggregators is a conspicuous cancer at the heart of markets which distorts reality.
Sebi Finalising Stricter Warehousing Rules
Rajesh Bhayani – Business Standard
An exchange-accredited warehouse service provider shall have at least Rs 10 cr ($1.5m) in subscribed share capital.
SEC
Private Markets
Bitcoin Sinks After Hackers Steal $65 Million From Exchange
Yuji Nakamura & Lulu Yilun Chen – Bloomberg
Bitfinex Offline as Customer Bitcoin Reported Stolen
Stan Higgins – CoinDesk
Bitfinex representatives confirmed 119,756 BTC (more than $60m) has been lost or stolen from the exchange.
Special Section: FTI, NSEL, India at the Crossroads
PLY: MCX slight off, FTIL down 1%.
Overseas Properties Of NSEL Defaulters Under ED Lens
The Economic Times
The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has honed its sights on securing overseas immoveable properties of a few large borrowers who defaulted in settling their obligations on the exchange to thousands of investors.
QV Premium: NSEL Scandal Brief – Main File.
PLY: Hurry fast, please. Let’s get this sorted.
Technology
Casablanca SE Goes Live With MillenniumIT Trading & Surveillance Technology
LSE
Casablanca SE (CSE) has successfully gone live with Millennium Exchange for equities and fixed income trading and Millennium Surveillance. The new platform is part of a wider strategic cooperation agreement with LSEG to expand CSE’s activity in the North West and Central African regions. Moroccan CSD, Maroclear, has previously selected LSEG’s UnaVista to provide its trade repository technology. Earlier this year, CSE partnered with LSEG to launch ELITE, a successful business development programme, in Morocco.
Tullett Prebon Announces 300 New Northern Ireland Jobs
Belfast Telegraph
Tullett Prebon To Build New Tech Hub In Belfast
Finextra
Tullett Prebon is to open a new global technology hub in Belfast, creating 300 new positions.
The new facility, which will focus on development and technical support for Tullett’s global business, is backed by Invest Northern Ireland, which is providing support and assistance to attract and develop employees.
It is expected to be fully operational during 2019.
PLY: Euronext may be closing its Belfast operations but the fine city of my birth remains a thriving hub for exchange operations nowadays – including CME. Good to see and well done Invest NI. Meanwhile if I was a TNT broker, I think I would learn coding, better chances of keeping a job, clearly and Belfast is buzzing these days…
R3 Welcomes Thomson Reuters To Distributed Ledger Consortium
MondoVisione
Wall Street Blockchain Alliance Adds Calypso Technology As Corporate Member
MondoVisione
PLY: There are so many consortia in the field now, we’re thinking of an Exchange Invest Distributed Ledger to keep up with who is Blockchaining with whom…(who might actually deliver anything is a whole separate sidechain). What is a core useful database is now out of hand as a mania has gripped middle management that being on said committees can keep your job in times of payroll reductions.
Monetary Authority Of Singapore Sets Up International Technology Advisory Panel
MondoVisione
PLY: A couple of folks with real live foresight can be found on the panel including Matthias Kroner, CEO of Fidor Bank (itself sold to France’s BPCE last week) and Oanda Co-Founder Michael Stumm. It’s otherwise mostly a list which is corporate friendly as opposed to especially innovative but it probably suits Singapore Inc’s preferred corporate style, as opposed to anything too bleeding edge.
Products
ICE Launches ICE Swap for Trading Cleared Single Name CDS
BUSINESS WIRE
Consolidates liquidity across credit derivatives and extends established electronic trading protocols to the entire CDS market.
This Boring Service Is Suddenly a Big Concern for Treasurys (subscription)
Katy Burne – Wall Street Journal
PLY: BONY is the last GCM settling Treasury’s in the world’s largest bond market…it seems somewhat impossible to conceive what might be conservatively termed a potential stress point in global market structure.
LexisNexis & Elliptic Join To Curb Bitcoin Money-Laundering
Jemma Kelly – Reuters
LexisNexis said the new service it has created with London-based startup Elliptic would bring bank-grade AML controls to bitcoin transactions, making the virtual currency more attractive to those who might want to use it for legitimate transactions.
PLY: There have been many looking at this AML space for Bitcoin.
Career Paths
TMX announced that Alain Miquelon, President & CEO, Montréal Exchange (MX) & Group Head of Derivatives, has left the organization to pursue other opportunities. Mr. Miquelon joined MX as EVP, CFO & Head of Strategy in 2007 and oversaw the successful integration of MX & TSX Group, completed in 2008. He was named President & CEO of MX in 2009.
Luc Fortin, MD, Derivatives Trading, will be acting as interim President & CEO, MX. Mr. Fortin joined MX in June 2016, following a 25-year capital markets career with a specialty in leading client-facing teams in fixed income and derivatives. Mr. Fortin will report to Mr. Eccleston.
FAO/PLY: Last month TMX appointed Jay Rajarathinam as Chief Information Officer, while in June John McKenzie was named CFO, replacing CFO Michael Ptasznik, who resigned in order to join Nasdaq in July. In a steady stream of departures to NASDAQ, CTO Brenda Hoffmann moved to NYC, former CEO Tom Kloet became a NASDAQ NED (March 2015), while NASDAQ acquisition Chi-X Canada is being advised by former TMX staffer Kevin Cowan (March 2016). In April, TMX hired Shaun McIver from Nasdaq and named him its new chief client officer, in the one trade going the other direction…
National Settlement Depository (NSD), Russia’s CSD, announced new management appointments: Artyom Duvanov was appointed Director for Innovations, Denis Buryakov was named MD for Depository Operations, and Tatiana Trostyanitskaya assumed the post of Director of Securities Department.
CITY A.M. reports that Carol Mathis, the COO of RBS’s investment banking arm has joined Blythe Masters’ Digital Asset Holdings, the fintech firm backed by ASX and CME as well as various banks.
PanXchange, the Denver based commodity exchange solution vendor, has made several appointments, including Charlie Stevens as Director of US Feed Ingredients and Matt Kinser as Senior Systems Architect & Developer. On the Advisory Board 3 names have been added,
- Scott Cavey, Veteran trader with Cargill Animal Nutrition & Koch Industries, CEO of e-Markets, software tools for trading & deal execution;
- Chip Dempsey, formerly ED Morgan Stanley Principle Strategic Investments et al;
- Bill Templer, ex-MD UBS, now with Faventus Consulting, most recently the man who led the CurveGlobal project.
PLY: Good to see the extensive knowledge of Chip Dempsey and Bill Templer being added to the PanXchange advisory board.
Industry veteran Brian Smith joins Axioma as Head of Australia & New Zealand. Smith will report to Olivier d’Assier, APAC MD for Axioma.
Financial Calendar
03.08 – ICE Q2 Results
03.08 – TMX Q2 2016 Results
04.08 – Bats Q2 2016 Results
04.08 – WSE 2015 PLN 2.36 dividend payment
All forthcoming exchange / investment related events are now listed in our Events page.
Analyst Notes
LSE “Outperform” Rating Reiterated By BNP Paribas – GBX 2,700 Target Price
ICAP “Neutral” Rating Reaffirmed By BNP Paribas – GBX 450 Target Price
A full table of current analysis can be found on our Analyst Ratings page which is updated daily.
Other stories
MondoVisione
Bursa Malaysia & Indonesia SE Sign MOU To Collaborate On Islamic Financial Markets
MondoVisione
AgriClear Announces Agreement with Boehringer Ingelheim
TMX
TheCityUK Sets Out Post-Brexit Industry Vision For Future Growth & Success
MondoVisione
PLY: After a shamefully dismal period of linear closed mindedness amidst TheCityUK and the dismally shortsighted Corporation of London (where their influence counted for little other than bolstering the public mindset that the blob’s Project Fear was simply not credible), this is what we call a dramatic pivot – Brexit is ongoing…and this report is all the more welcome as theCityUK seeks to look forwards.