First up, if you are thinking of going to the ICDA event, the former SFOA have given us a discount code for their Blockchain extravaganza. To qualify for a GBP 320 discount ticket (normal price GBP 695) use the code “YOUN320” to claim your discount. Here is a link to More Info & I look forward to seeing you there!
In today’s Exchange Invest, JP Morgan backs IEX, shareholders worried DB1 will overpay for LSE, BATS targets an April IPO, BIST looks at 2017…
Meanwhile, as I correctly predicted as they swamped the airwaves, a year ago, it appears FanDuel & DraftKings have agreed to shut down in New York. Readers may recall last year I questioned the logic of their blanket advertising campaigns which in a whole different way defined “March Madness.”
Public Markets
MondoVisione
Total income £2,381.5 million, up 72%, adjusted operating profit £709.6 million, up 27% and operating profit £499.9 million, up 44%.
PLY: The difficulty is that on the strip out, the numbers don’t look so scintillating, if I understood correctly on a scan, even clearing was suffering margin pressure. Thus investors are wise to prompt:
DB1 Cautioned Not to Pay Too Much for LSE
John Detrixhe – Bloomberg
Some of the biggest shareholders of DB1 are cautioning management…
PLY: A multi-legged stalemate appears to be approaching…perhaps nobody can get LSE through antitrust on CCP (maybe NASDAQ but then they need a lot of leverage…calling the Emirates anybody?…oops $40/barrel, maybe not this week…) & everybody seems to have missed Markit. It has already been an interesting week and indeed exchanges have done nothing so far.
LSE’s Rolet Earns £6.6m (USD 9.4m) In 2015 (subscription)
Tim Cave – Financial News
LSE handed its CEO Xavier Rolet, who is set to step down after its planned merger with DB1, a pay package worth £6.6m (USD 9.4m) for 2015 – the highest annual package since he joined the group – and is set to hike his salary to reflect his success at the helm.
PLY: Hardly a staggering number – significantly less than e.g. Bob Greifeld last time I looked.
James Burton, Daniel Martin & James Salmon – Daily Mail
PLY: I think the questions in the upper House from Lord Myners are the most pinpoint in their resolute concern about London losing power in the Frankfurt takeover.
Nick Goodway – Evening Standard
PLY: If the LSE’s Dickensian Department of Agitprop already has the London Evening Standard pushing back, this suggests the battle for hearts and souls is being lost. The Standard is traditionally a pro Business and heavily pro City cheerleader. (One thing interested onlooker outside the parish find confusing is how – if LSE was such a titan of doing deals, it has suddenly folded for zero premium into the arms of a competitor… – “XavRol,” “petard” and “hoist” are the words to arrange in an optimal sentence here methinks).
QV Premium: DB1-LSE Merger Brief.
LSE Pushes CurveGlobal Launch To Q3 (subscription)
FOW
LSE has delayed the launch of its new rates exchange, CurveGlobal, to Q3 of this year.
PLY: Already 24 months and more in the making but with this consistency of non-delivery, the Groundhog Day jokes just won’t go away…
Jefferies Seeks $4 Million Fee in Suit Against BGC, Gooch
Zeke Faux & Patricia Hurtado – Bloomberg
Jefferies Finance says it’s owed $4 million, and it wants broker BGC Partners & Michael “Mickey” Gooch to pay. In a lawsuit filed Monday, Jefferies demanded fees it claims it earned after agreeing to provide financing for GFI Group’s 2014 plan to sell itself. According to the complaint, Gooch’s investment vehicle first said it would pay the fees and later refused.
The case is at least the sixth growing out of the GFI transaction. In lawsuits that settled last year, GFI investors claimed board members, including Chairman Gooch and CEO Colin Heffron, pushed to sell the firm to CME for $4.55 a share while hiding the fact that Howard Lutnick’s BGC made a better offer. Directors agreed to a $10.75 million settlement.
QV Premium: BGC – CME – GFI Brief.
J.P. Morgan Executives Say Regulators Should Approve IEX As Exchange (subscription)
Dave Michaels – Wall Street Journal
The country’s largest bank is siding with upstart market IEX Group in its effort to create a new stock exchange that pledges to be a haven for long-term investors.
PLY: Big sell side endorsement for IEX as the SEC continues to vacillate over a decision.
Is the Stock Market Still Rigged?
Taylor Tepper – Time
SEC’s White: U.S. Should ‘Harmonize’ Broker-Dealer Rules Across Agencies
Reuters
MondoVisione
LME Walks Fine Line Between Beasts Of Aluminium & Regulation
Andy Home – Reuters
LME has just announced proposals for a new layer of regulatory oversight in the form of “accountability levels”. At first glance they look like position limits. But they don’t actually limit the size of positions held and won’t prohibit the sort of massive position that has just created another bout of turbulence in LME aluminium spreads.
ESMA To Cooperate With South Korean Regulators On CCPs
MondoVisione
PLY: ESMA doing well as finally EU CCP recognition is pushing forward – late but at least the movement is in the correct direction.
Esma Keen To Remind Commission Of Deadlines As Mifid II Rumbles On (subscription)
James Rundle – Financial News
Esma will start work immediately on amending key Mifid II rules that were sent back to it for revision earlier in March, but warned that proper procedure is not being followed.
Private Markets
BATS Set to Move Forward With April IPO Plans
Charlie Gasparino – FOX Business
In January Bats has officially filed for an IPO with US regulators.
Claire Milhench – Reuters
Borsa Istanbul (BIST) plans to sell around 40% of its share capital next year via an IPO, its CEO, Tuncay Dinc, said on Tuesday. Dinc had said last September that earlier plans for an IPO in 2016 would likely be derailed by low market valuations. The ratio of shares allocated for the IPO is expected to be around 42.75%, corresponding to the Turkish government’s majority stakeholding. Dinc declined to give an estimate of the stake’s potential value.
PLY: Interesting. Turkey has political issues but the biggest problem for a BIST IPO may be that the cornerstone round only seems to have snagged EBRD last year… Certainly there appears to be a marked reluctance to value BIST currently at anything above the level NASDAQ entered when they swapped tech for equity, although I don’t believe EBRD ever made it clear what they paid for their 10% stake.
Interview: NSE Sees ‘Strong Pipeline’ For IPOs
Reuters
National SE (NSE) expects to see a good number of IPOs this year across a variety of sectors, its CEO Chitra Ramkrishna said on Tuesday.
PLY: Good. NSE remains a great entity while it has to be said, dig below the surface and we are finally seeing evidence of economic reform by the Modi government which can only benefit the nation and its citizenry alike…
Special Section: FTI, NSEL, India at the Crossroads
PLY: …but alas NSEL still festers unresolved, showing how much work needs to be done on the Indian blob. MCX is flattish, FTIL down 1%.
Products
CME & Thomson Reuters to Enhance LBMA Silver Price Benchmark
CME
These new measures follow the introduction of a circuit breaker in January 2016 aimed at further developing the LBMA Silver Price Benchmark and protecting its integrity. The auction may be stopped, reset & restarted to address significant price movements during the auction, which are inconsistent with the underlying market.
The new measures are:
- Introducing a blind auction
- Sharing the imbalance in the auction
- Increasing the predefined threshold
The measures, which have been approved by the independent Oversight Committee, will be implemented on 16 May 2016 and become part of the Participant Rule Book and Platform Calculation Methodology.
Securitisation Does Not Deserve Toxic Tag (subscription)
Alexander Batchvarov (head of international structured finance at BAML Global Research)- Financial Times
Sector must be revived to help the European economy.
PLY: Mr Batchvarov uses the Brussels Blobs’ daily comic to make a very serious point. If securitisation is toxic, then clearly so too is Brussels, the EU as a whole, vast swathes of the Eurozone and much else. Equally, there is every reason to increase securitisation as a means to see some life in EU economies, even if the Euro or the Union itself cannot survive the upheaval of such surgery.
Violin Memory & Stream Financial Launch FlashSync for Ultra-high-performance Data Aggregation
Violin Memory
PLY: Today’s distinctly interesting data news.
Indexes
CESC Announces Launch Date For Gaming Index
MondoVisione
Further to 29 February 2016 announcement, the CES Gaming Top 10 Index (CES G10) will launch on HKEx 18 April 2016.
Career Paths
Broadridge named Robert Revesz as Senior Director, with a focus on reference data client services and implementations. He joins Nathan Wolaver, Michael Sunwoo & Tim Versteeg, all of whom have joined the firm recently from Asset Control and are focused on strengthening the Managed Data Service solution.
Financial Calendar
24.03 – ICAP – TNT – vote on transaction
New! – 20.04 – SGX Q3 Results FY2016
All forthcoming exchange / investment related events are now listed in our Events page.
Share Notes
In connection with a monthly share savings plan for employees of subsidiaries, Oslo Børs VPS Holding has sold a total of 2049 shares. New holding is 5007 shares. Employees paid a share price of NOK 84,01, but were allowed a discount of 20% on purchases up to NOK 625.
Other stories
MondoVisione
Regrouping For A Renewed MiFIR Compliance Effort
Michael Shashoua – Waters Technology
Inside Reference Data gathers together leading data management professionals to discuss issues raised by the Markets in Financial Instruments Regulation.
ESMA Publishes Translations Of Its Guidelines For The Assessment Of Knowledge & Competence
MondoVisione
ASIC Consults On Remaking ASIC Class Orders On Financial Services Disclosure
MondoVisione
British & Australian Financial Regulators Sign Agreement To Support Innovative Businesses
MondoVisione
MondoVisione
PLY: ASIC / IOSCO Chairman Greg Medcraft to host the event in Sydney.