Eurex board confirms it is seeking US partner

Swiss-German derivatives exchange Eurex has confirmed it is in talks with a number of rival US-based exchanges about forming a partnership to expand its ailing US business.

The exchange agreed that it would seek an external party to acquire a stake in Eurex US, following a supervisory board meeting yesterday. The move was taken after its parent companies, Deutsche Börse and SWX Swiss Exchange, decided to push for a change to the strategic direction of the US exchange last year.

Eurex US has yet to make a profit since it was launched in February 2004 at a cost of €60 million. Eurex currently distributes approximately 30% of its global benchmark futures contracts to the US, and it had hoped to serve this market through a US-based exchange.

But it has struggled to compete with US rivals. Last year, total trades on Eurex US peaked at 134,000 trades per day compared with an average of 2.7 million daily contracts traded on the Chicago Board of Trade. By contrast, Eurex’s successful European arm is the largest derivatives exchange by volume, with 2.9 million daily trades.

“We think there is value in doing this with a partner,” a spokesman for Deutsche Börse told RiskNews. But he refused to name the US parties Eurex is speaking with or the motivation behind the move.
Gareth Gore