The European Energy Exchange (EEX) has become the new majority shareholder in Cleartrade Exchange (CLTX), a Singaporean Futures Exchange founded in 2010.
EEX has taken a 52 per cent holding in CLTX. The transaction has been financed from EEX book cash.
The acquisition was agreed in Q4 2013 with all regulatory approval completed in December.
Peter Reitz (pictured), chief executive officer of EEX, says: “CLTX has succeeded in becoming an important execution exchange for commodity derivatives in a remarkably short space of time. Its core asset classes are a good fit with our existing markets. Combined with the impressive technical, regulatory and operational footprint of the business, this made the exchange an excellent investment partner. With the acquisition of CLTX, EEX group expands its product and service offering to a global reach with a presence in new markets and products which complements the existing portfolio. Furthermore, this deal is a further step in implementing Deutsche Börse Group’s Asia strategy.”
“I am delighted to announce the completion of an investment deal with EEX,” says Richard Baker, chief executive officer of CLTX. “It has always been our intention to develop and expand our role as a key player in the transformation of OTC freight and commodity markets to exchange-traded futures. To this end we have been seeking to diversify our shareholding for some time. In EEX, as part of the Deutsche Börse group we have found a partner with extensive experience of running global futures and energy markets and we are very excited about the future for CLTX with such a backer. We firmly believe that this new structure will enable us to enhance the solutions CLTX provides.
“We have always focused on growing our business by providing the best execution venue for our asset classes. From the outset we challenged the established methods of trading, bringing new levels of speed, accuracy and competitiveness to global trading and market participants were very quick to see the competitive advantages provided by our approach to technology and regulatory infrastructure.”
EEX and CLTX will hold a joint press conference in London later this month giving more details on the deal and the future cooperation.
