Punter Southall Group has taken 100 per cent ownership of fund management boutique PSigma Asset Management.   PSigma Asset Management was formed in February 2007 as a joint venture – 50% owned by the founder partners and 50% by the Punter Southall Group. Since then, assets under management have grown to around GBP750m.   Both leadership teams emphasised that it will be “business as usual” with no changes to key investment teams and managers. The PSigma funds and institutional mandates will continue to be managed in the same way.   As a result of this transaction, Bill Mott and Ian

NYSE Euronext and Deutsche Borse have both agreed to a mutual termination of the business combination agreement originally signed by the companies on 15 February, 2011. The move comes following the recently announced decision by the European Commission to block the proposed merger of the two firms.

The global mining giant Xstrata plc has confirmed that it has received an approach from and is in discussions with commodities giant Glencore International plc regarding an all share merger of equals “which may or may not lead to an offer being made by Glencore for Xstrata.” A combined group could be valued at about USD82 billion. In accordance with Rule 2.6(a) of the (UK) City Code on Takeovers and Mergers (the “Code”), Glencore (which already owns 34.4% of Xstrata) is now required, by no later than 5:00 p.m. on 1 March 2012, to either announce a firm intention to

NYSE Euronext announced today that in light of the decision by the European Commission to prohibit its proposed combination with Deutsche Boerse, the companies are in discussions to terminate their merger agreement.  NYSE Euronext said it would focus on the successful standalone strategy that has delivered strong growth and diversification of its core businesses and that it would leverage its financial strength to return capital to shareholders. In that regard, NYSE Euronext announced its intent to resume a USD550 million share repurchase program following the termination of the merger agreement and after the release of its fourth quarter and 2011 year-end

In January 2012, the international derivatives exchanges of Eurex Group recorded an average daily volume of 8.2 million contracts (Jan 2011: 10.4 million). Of those, 5.5 million were Eurex Exchange contracts (Jan 2011: 7.1 million), and 2.7 million contracts were at the US-based International Securities Exchange (ISE) (Jan 2011: 3.3 million). In total, 174.1 million contracts were traded, thereof 120.3 million at Eurex and 53.8 million at the ISE. Eurex Exchange grew slightly in its equity index segment, the largest product segment, to 59.8 million contracts compared with 59.2 million contracts in January 2011. Futures on the EURO STOXX 50®

The National Futures Association (NFA) and MarketAxess Holdings Inc have entered into an agreement that paves the way for NFA to perform regulatory services for MarketAxess’ planned swap execution facility (SEF). The Agreement establishes a preliminary framework for the exchange of information and the development of technology standards that will enable MarketAxess and NFA to develop, test and launch automated trade practice and surveillance systems and also to develop procedures and processes necessary for MarketAxess to fulfill its SEF self-regulatory obligations.  Upon the issuance of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission’s (CFTC) final SEF rules, NFA and MarketAxess anticipate that they