JUNE 2 2017

Good Morning and welcome to Issue 1007 of Exchange Invest which might correspond to a funky little Peugeot with sliding doors but it hardly becomes us to get too excited about it.

In other news, I see Malawi’s First Merchant Bank Is taking over Barclays Bank Zimbabwe – how soon before they bid for the whole of Barclays I wonder?

Prosperity UK Video

Prosperity UK Panel – Brexit, Euro Clearing & Financial Market Structure: panel ably chaired by Barney Reynolds headlining parish luminaries Jeff Sprecher and Michael Spencer, with one Patrick L Young lurking in the background – perhaps the ‘hot button’ parish topic in derivatives of the moment…

In Today’s Exchange Invest

ICE buys into the battle of the Bond Indices. No sign of London’s Brexit apocalypse.

And there’s more, happy scrolling:

In BigWorld

Not clear if all the hot air generated by those complaining have either actually read the Paris agreement or are offsetting their emissions either approach might be an idea to salve the frenzied liberal mind.

Overall in Bigworld, there’s lots to see, here’s a little digest of some interesting reading for the weekend:

‘Dysfunctional’ EU has plunged into existential crisis, George Soros warns

PLY: Sound statement later ruined by a suggestion Britain will seek to rejoin the EU before it has completed Brexit – the apposite word I think here is “woof.” So some logic and some nonsense from the New York bubble.

Meanwhile Paul Allen who bailed so early from Microsoft he is only the 35th richest man in the world apparently, has just finished the first aircraft with a larger wingspan than Howard Hughes’ “Spruce Goose” – which is intended to enable rockets to head off to orbit without the extra fuel of launch on earth.

There’s a good reflection on Trump and how he might like to channel a bit of the great President Reagan here while Daniel Hannan MEP writes a brilliant missive on the ugliness of Marx and the madness of those still believing in his horribly flawed theses.

If you are into general elections, it’s quite fun to peruse this missive on the BBC where its reputation as the Bolshevik Broadcasting Corporation always comes to the fore when they organise public panel discussions.

It’s the Maltese General Election at the weekend, which will deliver an interesting aftermath and then next Thursday it’s the British General Election, on which note: Britain’s leading financial newspaper City AM interviews PM Theresa May

Have a great weekend, here are today’s points and pith:

Public Markets

Intercontinental Exchange Announces Agreement to Acquire Global Research Index Platform from Bank of America Merrill Lynch
The ICE

PLY: ICE snaps up over 5,000 fixed income, currency and commodity (FICC) indices, just days after LSE bought the index business of Citi for $685 million. Good deal to roll in to IDC.

Land Grab In Hot Bond-Index Business Lures ICE, LSE
Bloomberg

QCA Marks 25 Years Championing UK Growth Companies On The Stock Market
QCA

PLY: Plaudits to QCA which has seen the UK listing environment change enormously over 25 years with not just the LSE platforms including AIM but also the growing number of competitive enterprises challenging the incumbents such as NEX Exchange…

London’s Brexit Apocalypse Is Nowhere in Sight
Bloomberg

A year after the Leave vote, Britain’s capital is scheming to dominate global finance, Europe be damned.

PLY: ….but then again if you have been reading Exchange Invest for a year or two, you will have already known, long in advance even of the historic vote of June 23rd itself, that Brexit meant anything but the economic apocalypse prophesied by the singular dismal crystal ball readers of a vast swathe of legacy media and the blob.

Taming The SGX : A Profile Of Boon Chye Loh, Singapore Exchange’s CEO
www.waterstechnology.com

JPMorgan Raises Indirect Stake In Moscow Bourse To 5 Percent
Reuters

S&P Global Ratings Withdrew Foreign Currency LT Credit Rating For LCH Clearnet Group
Cbonds

PLY: Somebody unsubscribed?

Financial Minds: Ashish Kumar Chauhan, MD And CEO Of The Bombay Stock Exchange
University of Nottingham

PLY: Genuinely sorry I didn’t know about this earlier as I would have been tempted to attend myself, next Monday in Nottingham, England…

London Stock Exchange Group Plc – Total Voting Rights
London Stock Exchange Group Plc Transaction In Own Shares
MondoVisione

Notice of NZX Annual Meeting 2017
MondoVisione

Private Markets

New Strategy To Boost Vienna Stock Exchange As European Hub

Management to boost VSE’s international standing by expanding product offering and intensifying global marketing.

IEX Chief Vows To Stick To Guns On Changing Markets
Financial Times

PLY: The Brussels Bugle gets its pitch wrong in attacking IEX for taking circa 2.5% market share with its niche model approach when surely realism at the plight of the vast bulk of stagnant platforms would suggest this is quite an impressive milestone. However it does note “The exchange says it is profitable, and the $75m it raised from investors in 2014 is still in the bank plus some — though as a private company the group doesn’t disclose its financial performance. Crucially, IEX’s backers still support the mission.”

Stakeholders Seek Sale Of Nigeria SE Shares By Way Of Public Offer
Nigeria Today

Cowan To End Mid-Point Matching In Millennium Dark Pool
Reuters

PLY: Convergex acquisition barely complete and with CEO Eric Noll on the way out, Cowan has already announced it will close the Millennium dark pool by the middle of this month.

Competition Council President: Romanian Gas Trade Can Happen On One Bourse
ICIS

PLY: Looks like the usual squalid Romanian tale of the blob preferring one party to another and potentially manipulating the law to achieve a single marketplace, despite the success of BRM.

Special Section: FTI, NSEL, India at the Crossroads

No news today.

Technology

E-Voting Technology Developed By National Settlement Depository Successfully Used At Sberbank’s AGM
MondoVisione

PLY: The Russian NSD moves forth along the ledger…at which point I may demur on further spot ledger mentions of this kind as we have covered the leaders.

This Blockchain Bubble Might Be A Good Thing
Bloomberg

Products

MTS Launches Global Collateral Management Segment For D2C Repo Trading
MondoVisione

PLY: Cool.

Brazil’s B3, S&P Dow Jones Indices Launch Commodities Futures Index
Reuters

Career Paths

PLY: Interesting developments at HKEX. Former COO and Group Risk Officer (GRO), Trevor Spanner, has been appointed Group CIO and will head the new IT and Platform Development Division. (Particularly interesting as it also infers we may see more new tech systems contracts in the near future). A new GRO is being sought until which time Spanner retains that responsibility. Former co-head of HKEx IT, Richard Leung, has been appointed Deputy CIO. Both these points are newly created.

Roger Lee and Calvin Tai have been appointed Joint COOs at HKEX in addition to ongoing roles as Head of Markets and Head of Clearing respectively. Congratulations to one and all!

Meanwhile in Germany, Dekabank CEO Michael Rüdiger has taken over as Chairman Of The Exchange Council Of The Frankfurt Stock Exchange, taking over From Lars Hille.

Takis Christias has been appointed as Head of Trading Strategies EMEA for Liquidnet Europe from Citi. Parishioners will recall that the brilliant Vacslav “Slava” Glukhov departed Liquidnet Europe a few months back.

Global Investor Group reports that IHS Markit has employed former NLX salesman Alex Reynolds, following former NLX staffer David Helps whose move was mentioned in EI Issue 1000.

DTCC has appointed Matthew Stauffer to lead a new Institutional Trade Processing Business Line.

Crowdfunding

Peer-To-Peer Lending Giant Zopa Confirms £32M Fundraise
AltFi

Zopa, the UK’s original peer-to-peer lending platform, has clinched £32m in its first investment round since early 2014, when it raised £15m from …

P2P Lender Wellesley Retrenches After Departure Of CFO Alasdair Lenman
Crowdfund Insider

PLY: This situation continues to look perplexing.