PLY: As I predicted (paying clients will recall the prophecy emerging years back), DB1 is sweeping up 360T, albeit after a competitive auction. Meanwhile it’s a bumper Monday with lots of crunchy tidbits, so enough of me, happy scrolling:
Public Markets
DB1 Enters Into A Definitive Agreement Regarding The Full Acquisition Of 360T
MondoVisione
DB1 and the shareholders of 360T Beteiligungs GmbH (360T) including Summit Partners 360 S.à.r.l. signed a definitive agreement regarding the full acquisition of 360T by DB1 for a total purchase price of 725 million Euro.
On June 16 PLY said: Given strong Germanic banking links 360T in many senses is a logical fit for DB1 providing added optionality & some OTC reach.
PLY: CME eased out in final round of bidding. Analysts worried about the purchase price. CME were able to play an ICE opportunist tactic as really this was a platform (given its many German speaking links) which DB1 had to win as it endeavours to play swaps and other (former) OTC products too. I think it is a good deal for DB1 and am not so price sensitive – most every other deal was overpriced by short term perception in the early days of exchange mergers after all…and as the late, great Jean-Francois Theodore proved, the assets often looked like bargains in the medium term.
The Hottest Bet for Exchanges Is Invading Currencies Market
John Detrixhe – Bloomberg
Read our Premium 360T Deal Brief.
PLY: I have been discussing this trend for years and methinks it has barely begun yet – the opportunity is enormous.
McGraw Hill Near $2 billion Deal For SNL Financial
Mike Stone – Reuters
State Street Q2 2015 Financial Results
MondoVisione
Q2 2015 operating-basis EPS was $1.37, down 1.4% compared to Q2 of 2014, with a 2.1% increase in revenue to $2.7 billion.
Athens Bourse To Stay Shut On Monday, Might Open On Tuesday
Kathimerini
PLY: Elsewhere in general economic news, the story of how former Finance Minister Varoufakis had a team which hacked his own tax offices (under Imperial troika control) is ‘Boys’ Own’ stuff…
ICE Delays Singapore Platform Launch To Later This Year
Manolo Serapio Jr. – Reuters
ICE earlier targeted to kick off the platform in March, but pushed it back to mid-2015 after China’s Zhengzhou Commodity Exchange complained against the use of its settlement prices as references for the cotton and white sugar futures contracts that ICE was looking to launch.
ICE is now planning to launch ICE Futures Singapore and ICE Clear Singapore later this year. The exchange has said among the contracts would be one-kilogramme gold, “mini-Brent” crude oil and renminbi futures.
PLY: A rare delay for the ICE machine. However, those who are already writing the Singapore entity off are going to be proven even more spectacularly wrong than the naysayers of the Hong Kong “through train.”
Nasdaq Launched ‘NFX’ To Trade Energy Derivatives
Nasdaq
Launched Friday, the platform will initially offer futures and options on oil, natural gas and US power benchmarks, with a fee holiday for the first nine months of trading. All products will be cleared through OCC.
PLY: NFX proves how you can recreate an exchange cheaply and efficiently – and with the OCC agreement, it offers an interesting third way in energy. Whether the market needs that remains to be seen. At the same time, the rejuvenation of NFX so swiftly and cost effectively suggests a nimble competitor…
CME Punishes Trader For Spoofing Soybean Oil Futures Market
Brian Louis – Bloomberg
Read our Premium Flash Crash & Hound of Hounslow – Brief.
Beijing’s Support Measures Fail To Revive Stock Market Turnover (subscription)
Enoch Yiu – SCMP
China Stocks Tumble, Suffer Biggest One-Day Loss In Eight Years
Samuel Shen & Pete Sweeney – Reuters
China Has Only Itself To Blame For Its Stock Market Collapse
Satyajit Das – MarketWatch
IMF Said to Urge China to Exit Measures to Prop Up Stocks
Andrew Mayeda – Bloomberg
IMF has urged China to eventually unwind measures taken to stem a stock sell-off that wiped out almost $4 trillion in market value.
Read our Premium China Capital Markets Transformation Brief – Main File.
PLY: At least the good news is that Europe is just purring along, oh hold on a second… Hmmm, and America is already well over the median economic cycle upswing. Polish Central Bank boss Marek Belka made a few pithy remarks about the Euro and not entering a burning house at the weekend. Less reported were his comments that the world is out of ammo lest there is another downturn. #Worrying.
Euronext To Raise Profile Of Listed Companies With Investors: New Agreement With Morningstar
Euronext
Private Markets
Payments Startup Square Files For IPO Confidentially
Alistair Barr & Douglas Macmillan – MarketWatch
PLY: Fascinating, we don’t major on payments in this parish but this has the promise to be a huge deal and the faster it gets more widely around the world, the better it will be for retailers and consumers.
ADX Approves New Regulations For Trading, Clearance, Depositing
Emirates 24/7
Nodal Exchange Eyes Q4 For Clearing House Launch (subscription)
Alice Attwood – FOW
PLY: Interesting.
Winklevoss Twins File Paperwork To Operate Gemini Bitcoin Exchange
Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfuss – Reuters
PLY: Also interesting.
San Francisco Fed Outlines Virtual Currency Risks
Aaron van Wirdum – Cointelegraph
The Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco (FRBSF) has published an article covering the risks of bitcoin and other virtual currencies. The article appeared in Community Banking Connections, a supervision and regulation resource by the Federal Reserve System for community banks: banks with less than US$1 billion in assets on their balance sheets.
PLY: Central bankers convinced of their own divine right brilliance, is not amongst the list of risks so far as I can see.
Special Section: FTI, NSEL, India at the Crossroads
PLY: FTIL down 2%, MCX flat.
Technology
SETL To Deploy An Institutional Payment And Settlement Infrastructure Based On Blockchain Technology
MondoVisione
Blockchain’s Newest Fan Is Executive Who Upended European Stocks
John Detrixhe – Bloomberg
SETL plans to deploy a multi-asset, multi-currency institutional payment and settlements infrastructure based on blockchain technology. The SETL system will enable market participants to move cash and assets directly between each other, facilitating the immediate and final settlement of market transactions. The SETL system maintains a permissioned distributed ledger of ownership and transaction records, simplifying the process of matching, settlement, custody, registration and transaction reporting.
The initiative is led by Peter Randall, the former CEO and founder of Chi-X and Anthony Culligan, an experienced hedge fund investor and CEO and founder of Roolo, a P2P bitcoin trading site committed to bringing bitcoin and blockchain technology into mainstream use in the City.
Check the daily updated Download centre on our website.
PLY: A good move by Peter, there are a lot of ventures in this space and there is room for a great many too – watch this space methinks.
Intesa Sanpaolo Mulls Fintech Fund Launch (subscription)
Financial News
Although still in the early stages of development, a move is expected before the end of the year.
Products
Relationships Still Key To Trading Corporate Bonds
Alex Chambers – Reuters
Are investors finally responding to reduced liquidity in the corporate bond market by modifying how they execute transactions on electronic platforms?
Bloomberg Given Green Light For EU Swaps Platform (subscription)
Financial News
Bloomberg Becomes Regulated Trading Venue In Europe (subscription)
Philip Stafford – Financial Times
The US group will come into line with interdealer brokers like ICAP and Tullett Prebon as it competes in the OTC derivatives market ahead of new European rules due in 2017.
Read our Premium The Bond Bubble, On Bonds & SEFs, A Bond Market Dilemma, The Bond Platforms Rush Brief – Part 1, Part 2.
ICE
China Central Bank Releases Details On Oil Futures Contract
Reuters
The crude futures contract, to be traded in Shanghai Futures Exchange (SHFE), will be priced and settled in the local renminbi currency.
Read our Premium China Capital Markets Transformation Brief – Main File.
NCDEX Adds Mumbai As Delivery Centre For ‘Gold Now’
The Economic Times
Indexes
KRX: Listing Of Mini KOSPI200 F&O
MondoVisione
Career Paths
SETL announced plans to deploy a multi-asset, multi-currency institutional payment and settlements infrastructure based on blockchain technology. The management team comprises Anthony Culligan, CEO; Peter Randall, COO; Nicholas Pennington, CTO; & Francois Barthelemy, Head of Corporate Strategy.
CFTC Chairman Timothy Massad named Eileen T. Flaherty as the agency’s Director of the Division of Swap Dealer and Intermediary Oversight. Ms. Flaherty has more than 25 years of direct experience in the financial services industry.
Ms. Flaherty has served as the Global Head of Compliance and Financial Crime Prevention for Newedge in addition to being the Americas General Counsel. Previously, she served in senior legal and compliance positions with Fimat, Aubrey G. Lanston & Co., DRW Holdings, CME and NFA.
Waters Technology reports that FTSE Russell has hired Lindsay Black as senior sales manager, based in Toronto. Black joins from MSCI, where she was VP of index sales, prior to which she spent eight years at TMX in various sales roles for TMX Datalinx.
IMC Financial Markets has hired Sam Yudelovitch, the head of sales at UBS Group AG’s dark pool as the Dutch HFT firm expands in America. Sam Yudelovitch will join as director of equity client services. TD Ameritrade’s Paul Jiganti is also joining the company with a focus on options trading.
Successful Singaporeans Abroad: ‘Accidental’ Move Takes Him To Top Of Ladder
Jacqueline Woo – Straits Times
Stepping foot into the futures trading industry was a purely “accidental” move for Singaporean Phupinder Gill back in 1987 .
PLY: A pleasant profile of a good man from the perspective of his city state origins.
Financial Calendar
This week
Dubai Financial Market BoD’ Meeting – 27.07.2015
29.07.2015
SGX full-year results FY2015
BGC Partners’ and GFI Group’s Q2 2015 Financial Results
Thomson Reuters Q2 2015 Financial Results
CFTC’s Energy and Environmental Markets Advisory Committee
30.07.2015
WSE H1 2015 Financial Results
CME Q2 2015 Financial Results
SunGard Data Systems Q2 Financial Results
CBOE Q2 2015 Financial Results – 31.07.2015
All forthcoming exchange / investment related events are now listed in our Events page.
Crowdfunding
P2P Lending Trust Raises Fresh £400m As Investors Clamour For Income
City A.M.
P2P Global Investors has raised £400m from its latest C-share issue, as investors clamour for alternative sources of income. The trust is managed from London and lends through a number of online peer-to-peer (P2P) lending platforms around the world, including Lending Club in the US, which is the world’s largest P2P platform. In the UK it lends through Zopa and Ratesetter, and in New Zealand through Harmony.
Other stories
More Steps To Regulatory Overkill
IFR
The much-maligned Volcker Rule finally came into existence last week despite a barrage of lawsuits, much gnashing of industry teeth, and countless protestations that the rule merely cements how little regulators, policymakers – and Paul Volcker – really understand about the functioning of capital markets.
Financial Stability Board: Progress In Implementing OTC Derivatives Market Reforms
MondoVisione