As the integration proceeds, other nations are preparing to follow. The boom has already infected the Scandinavians as well as the Greeks. Only the British seemed somehow left behind. The London Stock Exchange is still Europe’s biggest financial place, but, according to The Economist, "in recent years the LSE has seemingly done all in its power to squander this lead". London´s certainty of superiority has slowed innovation and little has been done to promote British hi-tech companies.
But London is also at risk in the international run for a global merger creating the world’s first 24-hour stock exchange. The challenge was launched in 1999 by the American NASDAQ joining forces with the Japanese holding Softbank in order to create a Japanese hi-tech market called JASDAQ. Both were soon followed by Frankfurt Stock Exchange director Werner Seifert proposing a merger between Frankfurt and London. But political and technical problems caused several delays. Thus it was up to the French to make the first concrete move early this year by announcing a merger between Paris, Amsterdam and Brussels Stock Exchanges. The project was to concentrate the blue chips in Paris, while Amsterdam would get the hi-tech segment and Brussels the small caps. The union of the three stock exchanges, called Euronext, would create Europe’s biggest SE.
At the end of August bankers and businessmen in the City of London just could not believe their eyes, when they read the news that the Swedish OM Gruppen running the Stockholm Stock Exchange was launching a hostile takeover bid for their 199-year-old stock market in Throgmorton Street. If the Britains are able to fence off their new competitor in the forthcoming battle, they should at least have learned a lesson about the vital importance of their merger with the Frankfurt Stock Exchange. For now, the takeover battle, which could even last for several months, has blocked the project, but the Germans could also respond to the Swedish bid with a counter offer.
