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On 13 December 2004, Deutsche Börse (DB), Germany’s leading stock exchange, changed the terms of this debate. It announced that it wanted to launch a £1.35 billion (EUR 1.91bln) takeover bid for the venerable but vulnerable London Stock Exchange (LSE), Europe’s dominant stock market.
If the bid succeeds, the future structure of Europe’s securities markets will have been determined at a stroke. The privately owned DB would dominate public trading in the EU’s securities markets. Seeing that its worst fears could be realised, Euronext, DB’s Paris-based rival launched its own merger talks with the LSE.
But instead of welcoming the DB initiative and the possibility of a quick solution to the challenge of rationalizing Europe’s inefficient and expensive structures for trading securities across borders, the prospect of a successful Frankfurt putsch is being greeted with dread
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Stewart Fleming is a Brussels-based freelance journalist