Thursday, December 22, 2011




Ahh, as ever time flies.
Well, after the chill of Bondi to Bronte lets home the Manly swim is a bit warmer.
Nice write up here:


LSE acquiring the FT (Pearson) stake is not such a great deal 8in my view. FT always provided an angle the LSE couldn’t.
ASX is on the pay before they vest executive comp. bandwagon.
EMCF recognised as the incumbent. Lovely! No doubt the same applies to Chi-X Europe?
Not sure about the FIA Principal Traders Response.
Political changes in Aus, but nothing changes until the next election.
RICs and ISINs should be free or at cost recovery at most.

Kinda sad to see DB sell / lose the Asset Management limb of their business.
Getco and Virtu both see value in increasing their NYSE floor presence.

Aussie alchemists get to play and try and turn our grey matter to gold. (frankly, I think digging holes in the back yard is easier).
And an odd, but related story.  Aussie real estate is a proxy for what is happening globally. Inter-Asian cash flows are rising to compensate for the stagnating G20 countries.

Note to self, for statements of the obvious, try University of New Orleans and SUNY Old Westbury. CFOs flee the sinking ship prior to bankruptcy. Fancy that!

Have a great w/end all,

S





Platforms

BATS CHI-X EUROPE EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE MEMBERS NAMED

 

 

CME President Awaits the Greenlight for the Reopening of China’s Financial Derivatives Market

CME Group began offering yuan exchange futures on Oct 17 in order to satisfy the increasing needs of settlements of the currency in global markets. Chinese analysts said this might facilitate the internationalization of China’s currency.
The company also plans to launch a clearing house in Asia and increase the number of employees in the region.
“The best is yet to be” is Gill’s motto that he learned at school – the Anglo-Chinese School in Singapore. “It holds true for most things we do through life,” he said.

LSE TO BUY PEARSON'S FTSE STAKE
The London Stock Exchange (LSE) has agreed a £450 million cash deal to buy the 50% stake in FTSE International it does not already own from publisher Pearson.

DEUTSCHE BÖRSE AND NYSE EURONEXT OFFER MORE CONCESSIONS TO REGULATORS Deutsche Börse and Nyse Euronext have offered the European Commission more concessions in a bid to allay antitrust concerns and secure approval for their $9 billion merger deal.

Hidden pay condemned
THE powerful peak body for industry superannuation, the Australian Council of Super Investors, has condemned the payment of hidden dividends on unvested shares, calling for management to ''pay back the money'' in cases where performance pay has not been earned.
Several leading Australian companies are hiding payments to their senior management teams by paying dividends on performance shares, meaning executives are getting a return on performance stock to which they may never be entitled.
The ASX Corporate Governance Council is yet to deliberate on the practice of paying dividends from stock which has not vested. The new chairman of the council, Alan Cameron, was unavailable for comment yesterday.
The ASX corporation buys stock on market from which it pays dividends to its management, before the stock vests. The payments are modest and disclosed in the remuneration section in the annual report.
Last financial year, each participating employee received an average $2300 in franked dividends and former CEO Robert Elstone about $46,000.

XCHANGING RENEWS LME CONTRACT
The contract, which renews on 1 January 2012, is for a minimum of three years, with a two year notice period after the first year. The contract is expected to generate revenues of c. £75 million over its first three years.

SIX ARRESTED IN MILLION POUND PHISHING SCAM UK police have arrested six people in connection with a phishing scam that plundered over £1 million from student bank accounts.
*** I immediately assumed this was the Swiss exchange....

Securities lending on India's NSE booms
Stock lending has been booming in the last three months due to reverse arbitrage opportunities thrown up by equities

Volatility in China: Hong Kong, Shanghai Capitalize on Indices
Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing Limited said Thursday it plans to start trading futures based on a volatility index in February.
That follows the Wednesday announcement by the Shanghai Stock Exchange that it planned to launch a series of indices based on market volatility, in January.


Clearing

DTCC FILES WITH SEC TO OPERATE CCP FOR MORTGAGE BACKED SECURITIES

BURGUNDY CHOOSES EUROCCP FOR INTEROPERABLE CLEARING

EUROCLEAR PREPS MANAGEMENT CHANGES

Shaking Things Up, In European Clearing
I love this:
And overcome the reluctance of incumbents such as LCH.Clearnet, EMCF and SIX x-Clear to upset the existing order and allow “interoperability” between systems.
EMCF as incumbent?
Brilliant.

LSE eyes OTC trade repository
The London Stock Exchange has started talks with British regulator the Financial Services Authority (FSA) about launching a trading data service for over-the-counter (OTC) derivatives.
The LSE already offers a trade data repository called UnaVista TRS, for share transactions, but is eyeing expansion into OTC products ahead of regulatory reforms to that market.


Policy

FIA Principal Traders Group
The FIA Principal Traders Group has issued the following letter to CFTC Commissioner Scott O'Malia in response to his request for public comment on a proposed definition of High Frequency Trading:
*** Answering a question with a question provokes thought, but I don’t think it addresses misconception and misdirected political opinion.

Developing the Retail Corporate Bond Market - 13/12/2011

Discussion paper: Development of the retail corporate bond market: streamlining disclosure and liability requirements
*** 27 page discussion paper available here.

The new Industrial Relations and Financial Services Minister Bill Shorten said he's delighted with his new promotion to Cabinet

The 2011 RBA Conference Volume, The Australian Economy in the 2000s, has been released today on the Bank’s website.

THOMSON REUTERS LOOKS TO SETTLE EC DATA ANTITRUST CASE Thomson Reuters has offered concessions in the way it licenses the proprietary Reuters Instrument Codes (RICs) in a bid to settle an EU antitrust investigation.
*** RICs and ISINs should be free, or cost recovery at most.

Insolvency rogues face crackdown
Government announces new laws to protect creditors from misconduct by liquidators.


Participants

BNY Mellon to snap up Penson's Australian ops
Penson Worldwide has announced its intention to sell Australian subsidiary, PFSA, to BNY Mellon for some $32 million
The agreement is for a share purchase transaction from which Penson expects to realise a gain of about $14 million when the deal closes in the fourth quarter this year

Deutsche Bank to sell asset management arm
Deutsche Bank has announced plans to offload its asset management arm, after completing a strategic review of the company, according to the Financial Times.
According to the report, the unit will be priced at €2 billion ($A2.6 billion), with initial bids due later in the year.

Mitsubishi UFJ to take 15% stake in AMP Capital
Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group will pay $425 million for a 15 percent stake in AMP Capital that will enable Japan’s biggest publicly traded bank to take a stake in the world's fourth-largest pension market
In September 2008 Mitsubishi UFJ provided a US$9 billion lifeline to Morgan Stanley when the New York-based investment bank’s stock price was floundering amid concerns over its business viability. Mitsubishi UFJ had a 22.4 percent stake in Morgan Stanley as of July 1.

VIRTU FINANCIAL BUYS NYSE AMEX DESIGNATED MARKET MAKER

Getco Grabs BofA Merrill's DMM Unit.
You +1'd this publicly. Undo

BANK OF AMERICA MERRILL LYNCH AND TORA TEAM ON TRADING PLATFORM FOR BUY SIDE
5% of all trading volume on the Tokyo Stock Exchange is processed through TORA. 

INSTINET BLOCKMATCH RECEIVES OK TO REFERENCE EUROPEAN CONSOLIDATED PRICE


Stuff

040 - 'Turning Grey Into Gold', Address to the Older Workers and Workability Conference - 12/12/2011 http://ministers.treasury.gov.au/DisplayDocs.aspx?doc=speeches/2011/040.htm&pageID=005&min=wms&Year=&DocType=
*** So, Australia is trying to turn Old...into Gold. I guess a bit of alchemy is one way to reduce the pension burden. Hope it doesn’t hurt.

154 - Final Report on the Economic Potential of Senior Australians - 12/12/2011
Realising the economic potential of senior Australians: turning grey into gold
All explained in 66 pages.

ION Trading is Patsystem’s single largest shareholder, and has been holding 29 percent of the shares for the past two or three years, according to a spokesman for the vendor. ION has valued each share in Patsystems at 14 pence or 20 cents per share. Based on its current market cap of 29 million pounds, ION is valuing the software firm at $45 million.
ION — which earlier this year acquired Wall Street Systems — now has until Dec. 26th to either announce a firm intention to make an offer or not.

Ray White posts best results in eight months and says Gold Coast office surprise star

Among the highlights of the year was a successful Asian marketing tour, during which more than 20 residential sales were made to Indonesian purchasers in the new Top Ryde City project north of Sydney.
“In fact, all of Asia seems to be selling to all the rest of Asia. For the first time in memory, Japanese developers are marketing Tokyo housing projects directly to Australian citizens through the Australian press,” White says.
“The giant Dubai developer Majid is set to market their massive Al Futtaim project in Beirut to the Lebanese community in Australia.



Study: CFO resignations could signal corporate bankruptcy
A chief financial officer's resignation could be a sign that a company is in danger of going bankrupt, according to a study by researchers at the University of New Orleans and SUNY Old Westbury. An analysis found that corporate bankruptcies occurred more frequently following the departure of a finance chief. A CFO's access to financial information could influence the decision to quit a failing company, the researchers say.


Warren Buffett once said that if you were not prepared to own the whole business for 10 years, you should not own a piece of it for 10 minutes.

"He who takes offense when none is intended is a fool. He who takes offense when offense is intended is a bigger fool."
-- Attributed to Confucius

You'll never plow a field by turning it over in your mind."
--Irish proverb

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