NYSE Euronext and Deutsche Boerse could try to put the disappointment of their failed $7.4 billion merger deal behind them by turning their attention to European exchange and clearing assets and a less ambitious growth path.
Deutshe Boerse and NYSE''s proposal to create the world''s largest exchange operator was rejected by European anti-trust authorities on Wednesday, making it the fourth to be blocked among a series of large exchanges deals struck in a frenzy of activity over the last year.
Now, the exchange operators need another way of facing the imperatives that led them to seek mergers in the first place: the need for scale and cost savings amid global competition.
NYSE Chief Executive Duncan Niederauer, in an interview last week in Davos, said the company had another strategy it had been pursuing even as it tried to close on the Deutsche Boerse deal. "We have a standalone strategy that was our strategy before we engaged in this. We carried out a lot of elements of that in 2011," Niederauer told Reuters on Friday. "We will continue to be primarily focused on the derivatives and technologies businesses."
On Wednesday, NYSE said it plans to return $550 million to shareholders through a share repurchase programme and to seek to grow its derivatives business.
NYSE and Deutsche Boerse have also been linked in media reports with the London Metal Exchange (LME), the metals market that has been put up for sale by shareholders.
A move on the LME would pitch them into a wide field thought to include the IntercontinentalExchange and CME Group from the United States, and the LSE and British broker ICAP. NYSE Euronext is also seen by analysts as an obvious rival bidder for European clearing house LCH.Clearnet, which has been in exclusive sales talks with the London Stock Exchange since September.
NYSE was in talks about a possible joint bid for LCH with data vendor Markit but the plan was scrapped in the middle part of last year.