Chicago Board of Trade shareholders accepted an $11.8bn merger proposal from the Chicago Mercantile Exchange yesterday, ending nine months of negotiations and an unremitting rival bid from IntercontinentalExchange. The results of yesterday’s shareholder vote, which will create the world’s largest futures exchange, were announced simultaneously by CBOT and CME last night.
CME Group will come into being next year and, continuing the industry’s amalgamative trend, is likely to pursue exchanges in New York and London.
Left out in the cold after an expensive campaign for CBOT, ICE is now a potential takeover target for New York Stock Exchange Euronext, Bloomberg News reports. According to Will Vicars, director of Caledonia Investments, NYSE Euronext’s “modus operandi to date has been acquisitions, and I think that will probably continue.”
Chicago Exchange Merger May Bring More Deals [Dealbook]
CME Acquisition of CBOT Turns Nymex, ICE Into Takeover Targets [Bloomberg]
CBOT-CME Is Done, at Last [Wall Street Journal]
CME and CBOT Shareholders Approve Merger [Chicago Board of Trade]
Posted by RandomGirl, Jul 10, 2007 2:34PM
This merger has insured that Chicago traders will be largely constituted by that which they're always been: ignorant backwoods peasants. Have you ever met a wheat trader? *shudder*