EXCHANGE NEWSWIRE, 11 May 2009 

LCH.Clearnet received a €830 mn cash offer from the bank consortium led by ICAP. LCH.Clearnet will meet with the consortium next week to discuss the bid. Other option being examined by LCH.Clearnet is buying out its shareholders and turning itself into a non-for-profit utility.

ICE has sold ICE Risk, its risk management business, to SunGard for an undisclosed amount. ICE Risk will be rebranded as Kiodex Real Time and will offer real-time exchange connectivity, valuation and risk capabilities for futures and options.

NYSE Euronext CEO Duncan Niederauer said NYX would act either as a buyer or merger partner, but not as a target in any future merger, as it has “natural built-in defense” including US and EU governments scrutiny.

NASDAQ OMX entered into a MoU with SIX x-clear and EuroCCP to support a competitive clearing model on its Nordic Markets. On October 9th 2009 NASDAQ OMX will introduce mandatory CCP clearing on its Nordic markets through its first CCP service provider EMCF (European Multilateral Clearing Facility).

Wiener Börse intention to take control of the Zagreb Stock Exchange is being fought over by some Croatian shareholders. Brokers holding more than 50% of shares in the exchange should be in favor of selling its stakes to Wiener Börse.

Wiener Börse is interested in bidding for a stake in its Warsaw Stock Exchange and expand its proposed exchange and clearing network to Poland. The Polish Treasury has not invited Wiener Börse to submit bids for the Exchange but invited NYSE Euronext, NASDAQ OMX, LSE and Deutsche Börse to do so.

CME launched clearing services through ClearPort for five new petroleum swap futures contracts, scheduled to launch on May 17 for trade date May 18.

Burgundy MTF: Neonet will offer its brokerage and technology clients access to Burgundy, the new Nordic MTF, which will in short commence trading in a number of Swedish shares. Burgundy is owned by Neonet, Avanza Bank, Carnegie Bank, Danske Bank, DnB NOR, Evli Bank, HQ Bank, Nordea, Nordnet, SEB, Svenska Handelsbanken, Swedbank, Ålandsbanken and Öhman, which account for most of order flow of Nordic stocks.

Deutsche Börse is expanding its European Directors’ Dealings (EDD) data service to include seven more countries.

NYSE Euronext: Liffe will launch a new standard, cash-settled futures contract based on the FTSE 100 Dividend Index, from Wednesday 13 May 2009. The FTSE 100 Dividend Index represents the cumulative value of ordinary gross cash dividends declared by the individual constituents of the FTSE 100 Index over a one-year period, calculated by FTSE in terms of index points.

NYSE Euronext: Liffe has launched a brand new Liquidity Provider (LP) Program for Euribor futures proprietary traders. This new LP program offers free trading of our Euribor futures contract during the latter part of Asian trading hours (during 11:00 pm to 1:00 am Chicago time).

PLUS Markets concluded a record April with over one million trades and a trading value of GBP6.439 bn (up 106% y/y).

The Monetary Authority of Singapore signed a MoU with the Qatar Central Bank for supervisory cooperation and technical assistance.

BMV April Equity volume was down -23% y/y. Derivatives volume was down -33.5% y/y.

Bursa Malaysia was upgraded to “Buy” at AmResearch. Price target was set at 8.4 ringgit.

HKEx was rated underperfom with price target was raised to HK$ 75 at Macquarie.

HKEx price target was raised to HK$ 80 at Credit Suisse but was maintained at "Underperform".

Thinkorswim 1Q09 EPS was $0.07, down 22% q/q as revenues were down 10.1% q/q to $77.1 mn. Analysts, on average, expected EPS of $0.16 on revenues of $85.8 mn. Total accounts grew 10.4% to 108,000. Retail DARTs increased 11.7% to 69,000 q/q.

Provided By: Equity Research Desk, www.erdesk.com