SIX holds on to Spanish stock exchange BME

SIX holds on to Spanish stock exchange BME Keystone-SDA

Swiss stock exchange operator SIX has rejected a possible sale of the Spanish stock exchange BME.

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When asked by the news agency AWP whether a sale was an option or was being examined, a spokesperson replied in the negative.

“BME makes a significant contribution to the operational and financial success of SIX and is crucial to the company’s growth strategy and competitiveness.”

Bolsas y Mercados Españoles in Madrid “once again made a significant contribution to the strong financial performance” in 2023, accounting for 18% of revenue and 34% of operating profit EBITDA, the SIX spokesperson said.

The financial infrastructure operator will not publish its results for 2024 until March 12. In 2023, however, SIX suffered a billion-euro loss on the bottom line. The result was also impacted by a value adjustment at BME, among other things: goodwill at the Spanish stock exchange had to be adjusted downwards by €340 million.

SIX acquired the Spanish stock exchange in summer 2020 for around €2.6 billion. The industry has been suffering from rather low volumes in stock exchange trading for some time.

Euronext interested

On Wednesday, Euronext announced that it was still interested in the Spanish BME, according to a media report. According to Reuters, Euronext CEO Stephane Boujnah said that the pan-European exchange group was interested in taking over the Spanish stock exchange BME, which belongs to SIX.

Euronext had also bid for BME before the takeover by SIX. The multi-country exchange operates the stock exchanges in Paris and Amsterdam, among others.

Euronext is also interested in mergers with Euroclear and the Nasdaq subsidiary Nasdaq Nordic, which operates trading venues in Scandinavia and the Baltic states, the Reuters article continued. However, CEO Boujnah also said that Euronext was not in talks about mergers with SIX, Nasdaq or Euroclear.

The stock exchange business is a classic business of scale, and further consolidation in Europe cannot be ruled out.

Translated from German by DeepL/mga

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