NYSE shareholders back merger with Deutsche Boerse

The New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), an icon of American capitalism, moved closer to ceding control to a German company Thursday, with few investors lodging any protest. Some 65.6 per cent of NYSE Euronext shareholders backed the $9.4 billion (Dh34.5 billion) takeover of the company that owns the NYSE by Deutsche Boerse, preliminary vote results from the NYSE showed. About 96 per cent of votes cast were in favour, the company said. The final vote results are expected Friday. The exchanges have promoted the deal as a merger of equals in part because it allows Big Board Chief Executive Duncan Niederauer to run the combined entity. The larger Frankfurt-based bourse, however, would control 10 of 17 board positions, while its shareholders will own roughly 60 per cent of a yet-to-be-named Netherlands-based holding company. If roadblocks to the blockbuster deal emerge, they are likely to come from Europe. The deal requires approval from 75 per cent of Deutsche Boerse shareholders by next Wednesday and then would have to survive a thorny European Commission anti-trust review that could run through the rest of the year. Niederauer said shareholders in the German company also back the deal, noting that the challenge there will be in making sure enough investors file the paperwork properly and in time. "I have not met a single Deutsche Boerse shareholder who is not supportive of the transaction," Niederauer said at the shareholder meeting in New York. The tie-up between NYSE and the German exchange was announced in February amid a flurry of cross-border deal attempts by exchanges eager to cut costs and diversify in the face of fast-eroding market shares in their traditional stock-trading businesses. The London Stock Exchange Group and Canada's TMX Group headed into negotiations, as did the Singapore Exchange and Australia's ASX. One by one, however, those and other deals collapsed, shattered by political and nationalistic resistance. A NYSE-Deutsche Boerse combination would produce a behemoth that offers trades in virtually every US and European asset class, with annual trading volume exceeding $20 trillion. It also explains why European antitrust regulators are expected to take a close look at the near lock the company would have on exchange-traded derivatives and possibly demand some divestitures or other concessions.There have been few public critics of the deal in the US, despite the NYSE's symbolism as a bastion of American capitalism. From / Gulf News