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LSE jilted at the altar

By Alex Brummer for the Daily Mail
Updated: 03:38 EDT, 17 May 2011

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As in almost every other field of human endeavour technology has transformed the way shares are traded.

We may yearn for the nostalgia of the floor trading on the New York Stock Exchange, but it is largely a thing of the past.

Nevertheless, the bourse is an essential bit of kit for any financial centre of worth.

It would be only too easy to mock the emergence of the Canadian Maple Group bid for the Toronto exchange - as an alternative to a merger with the London Stock Exchange - as a form of protectionism.

Similarly, the reservations on the floor of the Big Board about getting into bed with Deutsche Boerse might be dismissed as anti-German sentiment.

The reality is that America's raw capitalism and the German social-economic models are vastly different.

In the last 48 hours we have seen Maple intrude on the LSE-Toronto natural resources love-in and the Department of Justice object to the Nasdaq-ICE offer for NYSE Euronext. The market assumption is that Nasdaq, in the shape of Bob Greifeld, will come after the LSE again.

It will be fascinating to see how Xavier Rolet, the current chief executive, reacts.

The LSE under Dame Clara Furse was resolute in challenging foreign takeovers. She instinctively recognised that after 350 years of share trading in the City, the LSE should not give up its independence easily.

Shareholders who watched the LSE's share price come off the boil may have been disappointed. But as a free standing exchange the LSE has modernised.

Fixed income trading has become a large part of the business, it has a new electronic platform, Millennium, which despite glitches is now being exported globally.

Its track record for initial public offerings, culminating in the Glencore bean feast, is unmatched anywhere with the possible exception of red chip offerings in Hong Kong.

It is unlikely that the LSE and TMX will be able to merge now. A combination of Canadian nationalism and price look to have left it floored.

Rather than sit there and wait for Nasdaq to come calling with a highly leveraged bid, maybe it is time for the LSE to take the initiative and go for a pac-man defence. What is clear is that it shouldn't worry too much about the impact of a merger of Deutsche Boerse with NYSE.

The Germans are great at manufacturing but when it comes to Anglo-Saxon style capitalism they have never been in the game.

A fleet of foot, smaller LSE - based in the world's biggest trading centre - should not be shy about preserving its freedom of action and, if necessary, rallying around the flag.

Return to sender

The Bank of Ireland's response to allegations made by Labour peer Lord Ahmed that its London operations were in effect a 'sham' bank has been to disparage those making the charges.

Fortunately, the Treasury and the Financial Services Authority are not taking the matter so lightly. It is our understanding that the Chancellor, George Osborne, has asked the FSA to look into the allegations that BoI's London licence was falsely obtained and key figures have been invited to provide evidence.

The BoI's London offshoot also has been earmarked for a thorough-going regulatory inspection. The core of the charge is that the £10bn of deposits harvested from UK depositors at the Post Office have largely been used to finance the Bank of Ireland's property lending in the Republic.

As a result of its past, foolish lending 80% of the BoI is now owned by the Irish government and it could be fully nationalised if its lending book deteriorates.

The Bank of England, which is soon to take back control of banking regulation from the FSA, is known to be acutely concerned about the safety of the UK subsidiaries of European banks in London.

Among its worries is that deposits taken in the UK and capital assigned to the UK-based subsidiaries are properly ring fenced and cannot be sucked out by the parent.

We need urgent clarification from the Bank of Ireland and the Post Office. After all it is UK taxpayers' money potentially at stake.

Off line

Traditionally the annual general meetings of consumer companies are well attended events. Online grocer Ocado obviously does not attract the same loyalty.

Just one solitary female shareholder reportedly turned up at the AGM last week.

It is hard to know the exact truth as for some inexplicable reason chairman Lord Grade decided that reporters should be barred from the affair because AGMs are for shareholders, not the media.

So much for shareholder democracy.

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