Backlash for Gooch et al at GFI as shareholders are on the rampage over perceived bias towards CME on BGC deal. Could this be the last #CoyoteUgly standoff in the IDB world?
LBMA bidders appear to be known, and more…happy scrolling:
Public Markets
GFI Shareholders May Pursue Lawsuit Over Aborted Merger
Jonathan Stempel – Reuters
Shareholders of the former GFI Group Inc may pursue a lawsuit accusing two top executives of fraudulently causing them to sell their stock prematurely as part of a plan to take the firm’s main brokerage unit private, a federal judge ruled on Tuesday.
U.S. District Judge William Pauley in Manhattan said former GFI Chairman Michael Gooch, former CEO Colin Heffron and the company must face claims of improperly touting its sale to CME while spurning a more shareholder-friendly bid from Howard Lutnick’s BGC Partners. QV Premium: BGC – CME – GFI Brief.
PLY: The only thing which seems clear is that in the end CME had one value, GFI another and ultimately Howard Lutnick seems to have proved he was ultimately the best broker in this match off…
ICAP’s Spencer Said To Maintain Stake In Exotix Amid Fundraising
Donal Griffin & Gavin Finch – Bloomberg
Exotix Partners LLP, a brokerage for emerging-market credit, raised about 5 million pounds ($7.2 million) from investors including ICAP CEO Officer Michael Spencer to help fund its move into equities.
Spencer’s IPGL Ltd. and ICAP itself both bought shares to maintain their stakes in London-based Exotix, along with fellow shareholders Peter Bartlett and Andrew Chappell. Spencer will continue to be the biggest stakeholder.
PLY: Interesting move.
LBMA Said to Invite LME, ICE to Propose Gold Trading Platform
Eddie Van Der Walt – Bloomberg
PLY: LBMA invited proposals (as discussed last week) to develop a precious-metals trading platform from:
CME
ICE
LME
LSE / Autilla (j.v.)
Markit / Allocated Bullion Solutions (j.v.)
Bids expected by mid-March with a service provider likely to be selected in Q2. This follows the preliminary discussion Last year.
Meanwhile last month we noted LME was amongst those reportedly in talks with the World Gold Council and five banks about their concept for a futures market.
Goldman Sachs Consolidates E-Trading Assets & Capabilities (subscription)
Joe Rennison – Financial Times
Goldman Sachs has created a new internal group: Systematic Market Making,led by electronic trading & execution strategists under Konstantin Shakhnovich, global head of FICC.
EEX & Powernext Launch Additional Trading Venues In Response To MiFID II Revisions
MondoVisione
EEX, Powernext Move To Launch OTFs (subscription)
Luke Jeffs – FOW
EEX and Powernext, the energy markets owned by DB1, have taken the unusual step of saying they will launch trading platforms this year before the relevant European rules have been finalised.
Serious Fraud Office Boss Gets Two More Years In The Job Despite Libor Case Failure
Daily Telegraph
David Green’s extension comes weeks after six men were acquitted in Libor trial.
PLY: For once I can sympathise that Martin Wheatley may feel a tad aggrieved at his ousting as FCA head while SFO has been roundly humiliated.
FCA Fines ex-JPMorgan Banker Over ‘London Whale’ Trades
Huw Jones – Reuters
FCA fined a former senior official at JPMorgan 793,000 GBP ($1.15 million) for failing to be “open and co-operative” over the $6.2 billion losses racked up in the “London Whale” trading scandal.
PLY: Achilles Macris head of JPMorgan’s Chief Investment Office International in London, and manager of Bruno Iksil, the financial derivatives trader known as the London Whale, is not taking this sitting down, qv:
Achilles Macris Responds To FCA Notice
MondoVisione
Private Markets
TASE Agreement With Edison Investment Research For Analysis Of Listed High-Tech Companies
MondoVisione
Government To Sell Stake In Zimbabwe SE
Tatira Zwinoira – NewsDay
ZSE was demutualised in March last year resulting in the separation of ownership of the exchange in line with internationally-accepted code of corporate governance. Stockbrokers and government have 68% and 32% respectively.
Kazakhstan Hopes To Lure Stocks Investors With Relaxed Rules, Privatisations
Reuters
Bitcoin Group Delays Stock Exchange Float for the Sixth Time
CCN
Australian bitcoin miner Bitcoin Group has delayed its public float on ASX, yet again. The revelation comes soon after a disappointing IPO that fell well short of the miner’s expectations.
Special Section: FTI, NSEL, India at the Crossroads
PLY: MCX and FTIL both off around 1%.
Supreme Court Asks IEX To Pay Dividend Accrued To FTIL
Financial Express
The Supreme Court directed the Indian Energy Exchange (IEX) to release within two weeks around `32 crore ($4.71 mln) in dividends that accrued to FTIL towards the 26.6% stake it held in the energy bourse until September.
Technology
The FN Guide To Blockchain Consortia (subscription)
Anna Irrera – Financial News
Another day, another blockchain consortium update – this time from the Hyperledger Project.
PLY: I happen to think Hyperledger is very interesting – more an attempt to see everybody uses similar protocols, a kind of FIX for Blockchain and hence very worthwhile.
Products
Credit Suisse Adds Derivatives Contracts To ‘Unwinding’ Unit
Joe Parsons – The Trade
The bank transferred the assets to the SRU in a bid to reduce its capital requirements and meet leverage ratio rules.
Bitcoin Is On The Verge Of Splitting In Two
Ben Popper – The Verge
Bitcoin is in the midst of a civil war which been simmering for some time…
Borsa Istanbul VIOP Doubles The Underlying Single Stocks For Futures & Options Contracts To 20
MondoVisione
Career Paths
The Polish Financial Supervision Authority (KNF) at its meeting on 9 February 2016 rubber stamped, as expected, the appointment of Małgorzata Zaleska as GPW CEO.
The Hindu reports that SEBI has formed a high-level commodity advisory committee headed by Ramesh Chand, Member, Niti Aayog. The 8-10 member committee will advise SEBI on framing policy to address various issues plaguing the commodity exchanges.
The committee will also have the CEOs of three commodity exchanges – MCX, NCDEX and NMCE – as members, besides Gopal Krishna Nayak from the Indian Institute of Management, Bengaluru and another candidate from Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad.
G Chandrashekar, a commodity market expert with 30 years of experience, has also been appointed as independent member.
Alina Aldambergen has became Chairman of the Management Board of the Kazakhstan SE (KASE). She was elected to this position for three years by the KASE Board.
FT reports that Goldman Sachs has created a new internal group combining its automated trading activities. Called Systematic Market Making, the group will be led by electronic trading and execution strategists under Konstantin Shakhnovich, global head of fixed income, currencies and commodities
SEC announced that C. Dabney O’Riordan and Alka Patel have been named Associate Directors for Enforcement in the agency’s Los Angeles Regional Office.
ESMA Calls For Market Data Experts To Join Stakeholder Panel
MondoVisione
Financial Calendar
10.02 – BGC Partners Q4 2015 Results
11.02 – TMX Q4 2015 Results
11.02 – ASX H1 Results for FY16
New! 16.02 – ISE Mercury Launch
New! 11.02 – ASX H1 Results for FY16
New! 16.05 – ICAP results for the year ended 31 March 2016
New! CFTC’s Technology Advisory Committee Meeting Rescheduled to February 23, 2016
MondoVisione
All forthcoming exchange / investment related events are now listed in our Events page.
Analyst Notes
CBOE Price Target Increased By Deutsche Bank From $63.00 To $66.00
A full table of current analysis can be found on our Analyst Ratings page which is updated daily.
Crowdfunding
Bitcon P2P Lending Platform Loanbase Hacked
The Merkle
Loanbase, a Bitcoin P2P lending platform formerly known as BitLendingClub, has sent a security bulletin to all its customers informing them that a breach has taken place February 6th.
Other stories
AgriClear Announces Partnerships with American Akaushi Association & HeartBrand Beef
TMX
PLY: Interesting, given issues elsewhere with cattle e.g. the CME futures contracts going through a tricky spell.
MondoVisione
PLY: Too slow / Too little / Too Late – delete as you deem appropriate. Certainly there is no good spin for the EU here, this is a total mess of their own making.
One on One with FXCM’s Drew Niv
Ron Finberg – Finance Magnates